Tis the Season for Fraud – How is Your Business Helping – Part 1
Viruses come in all different forms, from the common cold to life threatening plagues. Computers are no different. Hackers try to break into banks at least once a day. RSA, a security division of EMC, is a premier provider of security solutions for Fortune 500 companies. Since February 2006, RSA has been tracking the Windows Sinowal Trojan. This virus has single handedly stolen the details of over 500,000 online bank accounts and credit and debit cards. This Trojan Virus installs itself on a user’s computer and steals all the information. RSA says “Sinowal Trojan is one of the most advanced pieces of crimeware ever created.”
More than 240,000 credit and debit cards have been compromised. This affects ecommerce businesses every day, as well as banking institutions all over the world. Most companies think they are safe because they have anti-virus software, but just having anti-virus software many not help stop this virus. The Sinowal virus uses a method known as “drive-by downloads.” Users can get infected without knowing if they visit a website that has been setup with the Sinowal code. Common websites include community sites such as Facebook or Myspace. Do you know what websites your employees are visiting? It only takes one person surfing the web. This virus has been around for over two years and is maintained by a group of obviously very savvy hackers who would have had to create a very solid infrastructure to house the mass information collected. The software is hard to catch because new variations are constantly released.
In 2007, Google discovered hundreds of thousands of web pages that initiated drive-by downloads. Sophos reported in 2008 it was finding more than 6,000 newly infected web pages every day.
There are things that you can do to protect yourself against attacks.
- Make sure to pay attention to where you are going on the web. Be leery of clicking on various items on social network sites.
- Steer clear of your bank suddenly asking for various forms of authentication, such as social security numbers, credit card numbers, and mother’s maiden name.
- Lock down and limit the sites your employees can visit from their work computer.
If your system has fallen victim to this virus, there are downloads you can load onto your desktop to remove the virus. You can talk to your IT professional or visit forums on the topic.
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Read more about Preventing Fraud – Part 2.
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