Kaspersky Lab has detected a banking Trojan that specifically targets online banking sites.
It creators claim can that Neverquest can attack “any bank in any country” and several thousand attempts to infect computers used for online banking have been recorded. To date there have been posts made in hacker forums about buying and selling databases to access bank accounts and other documents, which are used to open and manage the accounts to which stolen funds are sent.
An initial advert for Neverquest appeared in July of this year, with the creator seeking a partner to work with the Trojan on the servers of a group of cyber criminals
Among its activities are stealing usernames and passwords to bank accounts as well as intercepting all of the data entered by the user into the modified pages of a banking website. Special scripts for Internet Explorer and Firefox are used to facilitate these thefts, giving the malware control of the browser connection with the cyber criminal’s command server when visiting the sites of 28 sites on the list.
These include large international banks and payment systems. Of all of the sites targeted by this particular program, an investment fund appears to be the top target. Its website offers clients a long list of ways to manage their finances online, giving malicious users the chance to not only transfer cash funds to their own accounts, but also to play the stock market, using the accounts and the money of Neverquest victims.
After gaining access to a user’s account with an online banking system, cyber criminals conduct transactions and wire money from the user to their own accounts or – to keep the trail from leading directly to them – to the accounts of other victims.
Sergey Golovanov, principal security researcher at Kaspersky Lab, said: “After wrapping up several criminal cases associated with the creation and proliferation of malware used to steal bank website data, a few ‘holes’ appeared on the black market. New malicious users are trying to fill these with new technologies and ideas.
“Neverquest is just one of the threats aiming to take over the leading positions previously held by programs like ZeuS and Carberp.”
