More than 16,000 Computers in Japan Infected with a Virus Stealing Bank Information

Japantimes.co.jp reported on 9th August, 2013 quoting Japan's National Police Agency (NPA) saying around 16,000 computers in Japan may be infected with same type of virus which steals user IDs and passwords for online bank fraud.

Around 600 confirmed cases of unauthorized transfers of money have been handled by The National Police Agency since 2011 till July, 2013. It is suspected that a single group may be responsible for roughly 400 cases reported so far in this year.

Shedding light on the incident an NPA official was quoted as saying, "It is possible that the number of cases will increase," as per news published by Japandailypress.com on 9th August, 2013.

The virus which is spreading into different terminals through internet since beginning of this year is programmed to steal even one-time passwords of users provided by financial and banking institutions for a single transaction.

Some dummy and unsecure websites which are browsed by users, infect computers easily. According to investigators, most users click to read content without being aware of an infection due to a computer virus.

Police authorities with the help of a security software company have analyzed the code of the virus and observed that stolen IDs and passwords were sent to many servers situated that were situated in Europe and the United States.

Officials of NPA identified computer terminals which are infected by the virus from records left in some servers.

It seems the perpetrators used stolen IDs and passwords for online banking service to send money to their accounts.

The NPA has provided information to Internet service providers (ISPs) about infected terminals asking them to inform all users about breach of security and to remove the virus from their respective computers.

NPA and security firm notified online bankers in Japan about this computer virus and advise users to fix antivirus tools and intrusion prevention Systems (IPS) into their systems to ease out such threats. In addition to this Internauts in Japan are advised to keep their software updated so as to avoid clicking on shady websites which in the long run can land them into trouble.

» SPAMfighter News - 8/20/2013