PC Hijack for Phishing
October 22, 2004According to Ciphertrust, and as reported by the BBC reports, desktop PCs are being hijacked to allow phishing attacks to originate from Zombie PC’s.
It’s hardly a surprising move - use of trojans and spyware and other security exploits have real money behind them and are no longer the school yard for script kiddies. T
When phishing can lead to complete access to user banking details, it opens the door to wide-spread fraud, so the setting up of zombie networks - networks of PCs infected for use in such attacks - a viable commercial project.
As reported at the BBC: Cyber conmen ‘hijack desktop PCs’
“Phishing attacks represent a collaboration of the world’s most skilled hackers and organised crime,” said Paul Judge, chief technology officer at Ciphertrust.
“Instead of breaking into the bank to take money, phishers are tricking users into handing over their account information, or rather the electronic keys to the vault.”
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Many viruses, such as Bagle, MyDoom and Sobig, have been written specifically to open up a backdoor into a PC so that it can be controlled remotely by malicious hackers, spammers or criminals.
Link: PC Hijack for Phishing