A criminal gang is using software tools normally reserved for computer network administrators to infect thousands of PCs in corporate and government networks with programs that steal passwords and other information, a security researcher has found.
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Stewart, who has determined that the gang is based in Russia, was able to locate a central program controlling as many as 100,000 infected computers across the Internet. The program was running at a commercial Internet hosting computer center in Wisconsin.
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The system infects PCs with a program known as Coreflood that records keystrokes and steals other information. The network of infected computers collected as much as 500 gigabytes of data in a little more than a year and sent it back to the Wisconsin computer center, Stewart said.
One of the unique aspects of the malicious software is that it captures screen information in addition to passwords, according to Mark Seiden, a veteran computer security engineer. That makes it possible for gang members to see information like bank balances without having to log in to stolen accounts.
Between this story and the one about the hackers stealing credit card info and selling it, I certainly don’t think our money or info is safe. I think I’ll starting hiding my money under a mattress, it will be much safer there where hackers can’t get their grubby hands on it.
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