Police in London have arrested two people on suspicion that they created the ZeuS or Zbot trojan that infected many computers around the world. The couple used the trojan for monetary gain but authorities did not disclose how much money was stolen.
The trojan installed itself on victims computers using social engineer techniques. Generally the trojan would mask itself as a reputable website such as a bank, credit card company or tax office to get the victim to install the software.
"Once installed, the Zbot Trojan injects itself into the victim's Web browser and monitors all traffic. It then lifts credit card information as well as social security numbers and enterprise login credentials for social networking sites, as well as Web banking and financial accounts, which it subsequently sends to the attackers, according to researchers at security company BitDefender."
These arrests are important as they let cyber criminals know that they can not hide forever. Hopefully with more public arrests, the wave of online trojans could possibly be curtailed as corrupt programmers may be more cautious about their malicious habits.
14 Comments - Add comment