ZeusBot | Trojan Horse Malware

Zeus or Zbot is a Trojan horse malware package that runs on the versions of Microsoft Windows. While it is capable of carrying out many malicious and criminal tasks. It is often used to steal banking information of a man-in-browser keystroke logging and from grabbing. It is also used to install the CryptoLocker Ransomware.

It is a malware toolkit that allows a cyber-criminals to build his own Trojan Horse. A Trojan Horse is computer program that appears to be legitimate but actually hides an attack. Zeus is basically sold in the black market and it facilitates the non-programmers to purchase the technology they need to carry out in the cyber crimes. According to a 2010 report from SecureWorks, the basic Zeus package starts at about $3,000. Additional modules, which can cost as much as $10,000, are available for specific tasks. 

Useful Terminology

• Malware, short for malicious software, is any software used to disrupt computer operation, gather sensitive information, or gain access to private computer systems.
• A Trojan horse, or Trojan, in computing is any malicious computer program which misrepresents itself as useful, routine, or interesting in order to persuade a victim to install it.
• Man-in-the-Browser (MITB, MitB, MIB, MiB), a form of Internet threat related to Man-in-the-Middle (MITM), is a proxy Trojan horse that infects a web browser by taking advantage of vulnerabilities in browser security to modify web pages, modify transaction content or insert additional transactions, all in a completely covert fashion invisible to both the user and host web application. 
• Keystroke logging, often referred to as keylogging or keyboard capturing, is the action of recording (or logging) the keys struck on a keyboard, typically in a covert manner so that the person using the keyboard is unaware that their actions are being monitored.
• Form grabbing is a form of malware that works by retrieving authorization and log-in credentials from a web data form before it is passed over the Internet to a secure server. 
• Ransomware is a type of malware that restricts access to a computer system that it infects in some way, and demands that the user pay a ransom to the operators of the malware to remove the restriction.
• Cryptolocker is a ransomware Trojan which targeted computers running Microsoft Windows. 

Zeus is mainly spread through phishing. It was first introduced in July 2007 when it was used to steal information from the United States Department of Transportation. It became more wide spread in march,2009.

In June 2009 security company Prevx discovered that Zeus had compromised over 74,000 FTP accounts on websites of such companies as the Bank of America, NASA, Monster.com, ABC, Oracle, Play.com, Cisco, Amazon, and BusinessWeek.

Zeus gained notoriety in 2006 as being the tool of choice for criminals stealing online banking credentials. The malware can be customized to gather credentials from banks in specific geographic areas and can be distributed in many different ways, including email attachments and malicious Web links. Once infected, a PC can be recruited to become part of a botnet.

Because a Trojan built with a Zeus toolkit is so adaptable, variations of Zeus Trojans are often missed by anti-virus software applications. According to a report by security vendor Trusteer, 77% of the PCs infected with Zeus Trojans have up-to-date anti-virus software.

Hence, we can say that Zeus which is also known as Zbot is a Trojan horse is a money stealing machine that steals all the banking informations.

Concluding Note:

Keeping your computer safe from Zeus is not a monumental task. By following a few simple rules about Internet safety and coupling those rules with a robust security solution, you can rest assured that your computer is safe from the vast majority of Trojans and other malware that's out there.

Trojan horses are so named because they need your permission to run on your computer, either when you run the program yourself, or if you open a document or image that then runs the program. With this in mind, the first and best defence against Trojans is to never open an email attachment or run a program when you aren't 100 percent certain of the source, which includes all files downloaded from peer-to-peer programs or websites. But this is rarely possible in today's interconnected world, so awareness among the people is very important.