75,000 Computers Attacked by Kneber Botnet Virus

February 19th, 2010 - 1:37 am ICT by Angela Kaye Mason  

Feb 18 (THAINDIAN NEWS) A new virus, infecting at least 75,000 computers across the world, including 10 different U.S. Agencies, has been discovered. This virus collects logins ans passwords from online financial websites, social networks, and email and sends it back to its creators.

This virus is believed to be created by an Eastern European Criminal Group which will in turn sell the information on the black market. These attacks have continued since January, and corporate losses are being counted. Many corporate logins were taken, and access was gained to emails, online banking, Yahoo, Hotmail, and Facebook. 

Some of the companies which have been attacked are Merck and Co, Cardinal Health, Juniper Networks, and Paramount Pictures, The Wall Street Journal, and 10 Government agencies. These attacks happen most often in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the U.S.

The best way to check for this virus is to check your computer’s registry keys. These can be found by following this path : HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\UserInit  Look in the list, to see if the botnet, known as ZeuS, has attached itself there. It is usually called “ntos” in this list, but this could change.

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