A new virus can hack into your bank account and it can go unnoticed

Until now, customers would keep checking their banks accounts diligently in order to protect themselves from any of the online financial scams. However, that may not be very useful anymore as there is a virus that is not only capable of hacking into your account, but is also capable of covering its tracks.

Trusteer, an Israeli-based security firm, seems to have found a new computer virus, which helps fraudsters steal the money from your bank accounts and also manages to leave without a trace. This is one of the most elaborate viruses that have been found in recent times and it almost seems like one of the crime plots that involve the swapping of the security camera videos, where the guards fail to notice that something is amiss. This is a technique that is known as the ‘camera hack’ and it has been used extensively in a number of movies.

The latest version of the Spy Eye Trojan horse also works in a similar fashion, but it manages to swap the banks web pages instead of the video. Account holders will never notice that their money is gone as the entire operation is done smoothly. This virus uses a two-step process to conduct this crime electronically. The virus lies dormant for a certain period of time and just waits until such time when the customer who has an infected computer makes a visit to any of the banking sites. The virus then manages to steal all the login information and even manages to collect other personal information from the customer. This may include debit card information etc., and after that, the stolen card number may be used for fraudulent transactions. After the entire process is completed, the virus even intercepts future visits on the victim’s banking website and even cleans up the transaction records. So, the consumers fail to detect the fraud, and this delay in reporting the fraud to the bank, helps fraudsters gain extra time to finish the entire task effortlessly.

This entire clean-up operation after the fraudulent transaction is completed is also termed as ‘post transaction’ attack because the virus effectively manages to retain its ability to control what the victims get to see after these fraudulent transactions. These techniques have been in use for a few months now, and it has affected real consumers, states Amit Klein, Chief Technology Officer, Trusteer.