Trojan.Kardphisher

Given Microsoft’s well publicized anti-piracy drives, some novice to intermediate users might easily be fooled by a new Trojan horse called “Trojan.Kardphisher” which opens up a relatively realistic looking “Microsoft Piracy Control” dialog box. Symantec says that Trojan.Kardphisher is a “Trojan horse that attempts to steal credit card numbers by tricking the user into entering their credit card details to activate Windows”. Frighteningly, if a user falls victim to this Trojan, the rogue software will shut down Windows should the user choose to “activate” their copy of Windows later, something that would easily spook novice and intermediate users into entering their details when they next turn their computer on, because the Trojan instantly activates itself again and prevents you from running other software. Its interface looks really similar to all Windows XP dialogs

See the screen shots below

Once you choose to “activate” your copy of Windows because the Trojan tells you that “Your copy of Windows was activated by another user”, it asks you to enter in your location, your contact information, your credit card number, your ATM pin number (!), your card’s expiration date and the 3-digit CVV2 number. The software tells you that your card won’t be charged, but that it needs the details to proceed with activation.

One suggestion from the web on dealing with the Trojan should you find yourself infected with it is to simply enter in fake details, simply so that you can get past the “activation” process and immediately find out how to remove the Trojan from your system.

Many people will not be fooled by this type of Trojan but this may still have a lot of success because it has a very similar look to other Windows messages.

Security experts are warning about a stealthy Windows virus that steals login details for online bank accounts.

In the last month, the malicious program has racked up about 5,000 victims - most of whom are in Europe.

Many are falling victim via booby-trapped websites that use vulnerabilities in Microsoft's browser to install the attack code.

Experts say the virus is dangerous because it buries itself deep inside Windows to avoid detection.

Old tricks

The malicious program is a type of virus known as a rootkit and it tries to overwrite part of a computer's hard drive called the Master Boot Record (MBR).

This is where a computer looks when it is switched on for information about the operating system it will be running.

"If you can control the MBR, you can control the operating system and therefore the computer it resides on," wrote Elia Florio on security company Symantec's blog.

Mr Florio pointed out that many viruses dating from the days before Windows used the Master Boot Record to get a grip on a computer.

Once installed the virus, dubbed Mebroot by Symantec, usually downloads other malicious programs, such as keyloggers, to do the work of stealing confidential information.

Most of these associated programs lie in wait on a machine until its owner logs in to the online banking systems of one of more than 900 financial institutions.

The Russian virus-writing group behind Mebroot is thought to have created the torpig family of viruses that are known to have been installed on more than 200,000 systems. This group specialises in stealing bank login information.

Security firm iDefense said Mebroot was discovered in October but started to be used in a series of attacks in early December.

Between 12 December and 7 January, iDefense detected more than 5,000 machines that had been infected with the program.

Analysis of Mebroot has shown that it uses its hidden position on the MBR as a beachhead so it can re-install these associated programs if they are deleted by anti-virus software.

Although the password-stealing programs that Mebroot installs can be found by security software, few commercial anti-virus packages currently detect its presence. Mebroot cannot be removed while a computer is running.

Independent security firm GMER has produced a utility that will scan and remove the stealthy program. but i personally find the screen looks very confusing

avg make a free rootkit tool that works very well

download from the anti virus page of this site

Computers running Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000 that are not fully patched are all vulnerable to the virus.