Privacy, Security & Virus Information

Don’t make your Blackberry blue

It was a grey day for Blackberry owners when the news broke that some of the new components added to the phone are liable to allow hackers to gain access to the owner's personal details. For owners of the Nokia Symbian phone who thought that they had got away free the bad news is that they are also equally vulnerable.

And not just any virus attack but a member from the fast growing ZeuS "crimeware toolkit" suite which has been plaguing the internet of late.

The new malware virus goes under the title of Bugat, and although not as wide spread as the ZeuS virus from which it was cloned can be equally powerful.

The Bugat Trojan has been specifically programmed by its evil creators to retrieve financial login information, and perform high value wire transfers with the data that it has stolen Programmed to target the Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers, Bugat will slowly harvest information when the compromised Blackberry or Symbian owner blithely carries out some innocent online transactions.

Bugat will us the financial credentials that it has harvested and will suddenly instigate as series wire transfer transactions to bogus accounts that have been setup specifically for the purpose. Once the money reaches the bogus account it disappears like a whiff into cyberspace.

While Bugat is currently more common in the US rather than the UK, security experts state that there is no reason why it shouldn't begin to spread.

In the meantime, indications are that Bugat targets small to medium sized business owners. The reasons are that more business owners have Blackberries or Symbian phones than members of the general public, also small business owners are less likely to notice a medium to large online transaction for a day or two as more money is flowing through their account.

The lesson to be learned from the Blackberry attack is that no one is safe from hackers, who are searching online for any cracks in the security armour. It is virtually impossible to seal these gaping security holes, but what can be done is to make sure that there is a very powerful piece of anti-virus software installed and waiting to destroy these viruses before they can get a toe-hold on our computer, no matter how large or small, and no matter its purpose.

 

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