14 DAY TRIAL // South American bank customers must be aware of a piece of malware that seems to have reached maturity, stealing account information from unsuspecting internauts.
A Kaspersky Lab expert informs us that Latin America is no longer at the end of the list when it comes to hosting malicious attacks. In the past period Brazil deployed TELA, Peru served SAPZ and now VOlk Botnet is seen running freely on the internet.
While Backdoor.Tela allows the attacker to take over a system and install an FTP server on the infected machine, VOlk, just like SAPZ, is designed for local pharming attacks.
The version discovered by Kaspersky is called Backdoor.Win32.VB.oyu and it's specially designed to target users that rely on the services of certain financial institutions in Chile and Argentina.
If combined with social engineering tactics, local pharming attacks can be very effective, sometimes even more effective than eastern European malware such as ZeuS or SpyEye, which are injected into the operating system to catch any potential banking transactions that are being made from the plagued system.
Once the victim device is infected with a Backdoor.Win32.VB.oyu, it will be no easy task getting rid of it. Because the process this malicious element deploys is usually combined with social engineering, the best thing you can do, as always, is to be very suspicious of any shady looking requests received via email or phone.
Never trust anything that seems to be coming from a legal authority or institution, except if you know for a fact that what they say is legitimate.
Other recommendations to protect you against such criminal methods include the use of a strong password that is at least 8 characters long and includes uppercase letters and symbols. Also make sure you don't click on content hosted on untrusted websites and make sure your security solution is up to date and fully functional.