This may be of particular interest to Dollar Den readers who maintain online accounts with European banks ( such as ING )
(snip)"Cyber criminals have raided the accounts of thousands of British internet bank customers in one of the most sophisticated attacks of its kind.
The fraudsters used a malicious computer programme that hides on home computers to steal confidential passwords and account details from at least 3,000 people.
The internet security experts M86, who uncovered the scam, estimate that at least £675,000 has been illegally transferred from the UK in the last month - and that the attacks are still continuing.
Last night online banking customers were urged to make sure their anti-virus software was up to date - and to check for any missing sums from their accounts.
The attack has been traced to a 'control and command' centre in Eastern Europe. However, the nationality of the cybercriminals is unknown.
The latest attack involved a Trojan called Zeus v3 which hides inside adverts on legitimate websites.
Once installed on a home computer, the programme waits until the user visits their online bank and then secretly records their account details and passwords - using the information to transfer between £1,000 and £5,000 to other bank accounts.
The attacks began on July 5 and are still progressing, according to Ed Rowley, product manager at M86.
'In the vast majority of cases, if people had kept their computer's operating systems and software such as Internet Explorer up to date they would not have been attacked,' he said.
'More often than not Trojans exploit known vulnerabilities that can be simply patched and fixed by downloading updates.'
McAfee, the security software maker, said production of software code known as malware, which can harm computers and steal user passwords, reached a new high in the first six months of 2010.
It said total malware production continued to soar and 10 million new pieces of malicious code were catalogued.
It also warned users of Apple's Mac computers, considered relatively safe from virus attacks, that they may also be subjected to malware attacks in the future.
'For a variety of reasons, malware has rarely been a problem for Mac users. But those days might end soon,' a spokesman said."(snip)



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