A new piece of malware targeted at stealing the financial credentials of customers of large and mid-sized U.S. banks is now making the cyber-rounds, according to SecureWorks.
The Atlanta-based online security specialists have given the Trojan the name "Bugat."
Jason Milletary, a SecureWorks security researcher, said, "We suspect that the Trojan has been developed to compete with the likes of the Zeus and Clampi banking Trojans, as Zeus is quite costly and the Clampi Trojan is held privately by one Russian/Eastern European hacking group and is not available on the underground market."
SecureWorks said the base price for the current private version of Zeus is selling for $3,000 to $4,000. Additional modules such as the Jabber or Firefox Form Grabber also can be purchased on the black market, the company said.
"The emergence of Bugat reinforces that there is a strong demand for new malware to commit financial credential theft and that ACH and wire fraud remains a profitable venture for criminals," Milletary said.
"This demand may be driven by the desire for cheaper alternatives or malware that has not received as much scrutiny from security professionals. The continued introduction of this type of malware could have the unfortunate effect of lowering costs of malware and the barrier to entry into the criminal marketplace," he said.
SecureWorks has posted a research blog note on the find. It's at www.secureworks.com/research/blog. The company said it now has more than 2,700 clients globally, including several hundred U.S. credit unions.
