Technical Analysis - Zeus The Zeus Trojan virus has many different names. This virus continues to evolve, but the damage it causes has always been the same. It first appeared in 2007 on the internet, infecting Windows computers. “According to [23], a 2009 survey found that Zeus had compromised more than 74,000 FTP accounts on websites of businesses worldwide, including NASA, Bank of America, ABC, Business Week, Oracle, Amazon, and Monster.com. After execution, Zeus automatically gathers any Internet Explorer or FTP passwords contained within Protected Storage [8].” (Etaher and Weir) Its goal was to exclusively infect Microsoft Windows machines and to steal online banking information. It achieves this by browser keystroke logging and form grabbing. First, the malware
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The money is then transferred to a fraudulent company in which the money disappears. It is projected that 70+ million was stolen and over 100 people were arrested in connection with this scheme. This virus was able to infect up to 3.6 million PCs in the U.S. alone. It wreaked havoc in the online community. What made it even more potent was that the source code for this malware was made available in 2011, which allowed for anyone to modify and use in a malicious way. The virus is able to replicate itself by finding FTP accounts on infected machines and allowed it to modify a high traffic website. The infected website would direct the visitor to install malicious software. The software would test the unsuspecting visitor’s computer for vulnerability. It would then try to find any form of credentials and repeat the process while sending information it has found to the distributing host. This virus was able to spread through the downloading of freeware and shareware. It also found its way through spam campaigns and drive-by downloads. Zeus Trojan was flexible enough to be spread through email and compromising links. As a virus, Zeus was very difficult to identify. It used stealth
The money is then transferred to a fraudulent company in which the money disappears. It is projected that 70+ million was stolen and over 100 people were arrested in connection with this scheme. This virus was able to infect up to 3.6 million PCs in the U.S. alone. It wreaked havoc in the online community. What made it even more potent was that the source code for this malware was made available in 2011, which allowed for anyone to modify and use in a malicious way. The virus is able to replicate itself by finding FTP accounts on infected machines and allowed it to modify a high traffic website. The infected website would direct the visitor to install malicious software. The software would test the unsuspecting visitor’s computer for vulnerability. It would then try to find any form of credentials and repeat the process while sending information it has found to the distributing host. This virus was able to spread through the downloading of freeware and shareware. It also found its way through spam campaigns and drive-by downloads. Zeus Trojan was flexible enough to be spread through email and compromising links. As a virus, Zeus was very difficult to identify. It used stealth