Flokibot, a Malware is a Potential Threat for PoS Devices

Last week, the Ransomware virus called WannaCry threatened to affect many computers all over the world, now the sector of financial services is facing worries of a new possible threat called 'Flokibot', which is malicious software (malware). Indian Express published a report stating that Flokibot malware can affect integrity of huge network of the PoS machines. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) flagged this issue in Feb., saying that Trojan virus can steal banking credentials as soon as the customers swapped its debit/credit cards from the following PoS terminals.

Banks added over 10 lakh Point-of-Sale machines during the 5 month period of Nov. 2016 and Mar. 2017, following the push towards digital payments by the govt., as well as reduction of both the transaction cost and acquisition cost of the Point-of-Sale terminals. The number of PoS machines at the end of Mar. 2016 was 13.82 lakh, which increased to 15.12 lakh by Oct. 2016.

Indianexpress.com posted on May 22nd, 2017, stating that the Reserve Bank of India provided data that in 5 months (throughout and the post-demonetisation period), the banks have added 10.16 lakh Point-of-Sale machines thus taking aggregate number to 25.28 lakh.

The report of Indian Express additionally informed that malware called Flokibot has already affect the Point of Sale mechanism in Brazil, together with few incidents found in various countries like Paraguay, Australia, US, and Argentina. CERT-In alerted saying that, "the malware is believed to be the modified version of Zeus malware with enhanced capabilities of infecting Point of Sale (PoS) devices/terminals targeting banking/financial information."

It also advised that merchants and organisations providing PoS services review all system logs for any unexplained and strange activity and must install ant-malware engines and should update it to protect the systems from such attacks. It added that anti-malware engines should be installed and updated to protect the systems from such attacks.

Counter-measures are also suggested by CRT (Computer Response Team) for safeguarding the PoS infrastructure from a likely attack. Moreover, the experts have further recommended that for preventing the cyberattacks, key financial as well as infrastructure systems must get regularly updated.

» SPAMfighter News - 5/25/2017