Cyber Criminals Pouncing on Gaming Credentials

Webroot, an online security company, is alerting online gamers to be wary of cyber crooks who are increasingly seeking to steal users' gaming credentials.

Andrew Brandt, a Security Researcher at Webroot, via a posting on the company's blog indicated that the Threat Research Group of Webroot had traced growth in such activity ever since 2009 started, as reported by security watchdog on June 14, 2009.

Brandt indicated that there was a surprisingly large number of trojans that phished for gamers' license keys required for loading lawfully purchased games as well as for installing usernames and passwords for logging into online game accounts like those for World of Warcraft.

Brandt further wrote on the threat blog of Webroot on June 12, 2009 that the trojans with such a single purpose were extremely good at their task and could quickly and quietly transmit the selected information to remote servers that typically and somewhat astonishingly were located in China.

The researcher added that his organization knew all servers that were connected to these trojans as well as what all information they were transmitting.

Meanwhile, security researchers say that there are two categories of phishing trojans - Browser Helper Objects (BHOs) and Windows Services. The Windows Services trojans are designed to steal information of a wide range, both when users type in details in a specified form, and at times when they enter them idly but miss to notice something that could be scrutinizing their system registry. Conversely, the BHO trojans work only on active Internet Explorer and fundamentally steal users' login details.

According to the researchers, there are different ways in which the first malicious executable is loaded on a user's computer. Commonly, the exploits are introduced through malicious iFrames, which after the infection lead to a huge amount of malicious software on them.

However, the attacks could get uglier as the downloaded payloads might not always be from the phishers. They could sometimes be downloaders themselves, which facilitate a fresh surge of infections.

Brandt wrote that he could imagine how with little effort the attacks could potentially retrieve numerous account data.

Related article: Cyber Child abuser Sentenced To Imprisonment

» SPAMfighter News - 6/22/2009