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Tigger.A Trojan Quietly Steals Stock Traders' Data
**$tarDu$t** recommends a Washington Post Security Fix blog post dissecting the Tigger.A trojan, which has been keeping a low profile while exploiting the MS08-66 vulnerability to steal data quietly from online stock brokerages and their customers. An estimated quarter million victims have been infected. The trojan uses a key code to extract its rootkit on host systems that is almost identical to the key used by the Srizbi botnet. The rootkit loads even in Safe Mode. "Among the unusually short list of institutions specifically targeted by Tigger are E-Trade, ING Direct ShareBuilder, Vanguard, Options XPress, TD Ameritrade, and Scottrade. ... Tigger removes a long list of other malicious software titles, including the malware most commonly associated with Antivirus 2009 and other rogue security software titles ... this is most likely done because the in-your-face 'hey, your-computer-is-infected-go-buy-our-software!' type alerts generated by such programs just might ... lead to all invaders getting booted from the host PC."
more effective that the antivirus I use today
Nullius in verba
Does it make your computer bounce up and down on its tail too?
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
I though the most wonderful thing about Tiggers was that there was only one of them
Nullius in verba
Stocks are going down. Don't buy stock.
..does it run on Linux?
sudo mount --milk --sugar
Benevolent worms are a perennial suggestion in computer security, and the conclusion is always no no no no.
It is time for online financial institutions (brokerages and banks) to require real 2-factor authentication to log in to their sites. When I sign up for a bank account, I want them to mail me an ATM card with an embedded smartcard chip, along with a cheap USB smartcard reader. Alternatively, send a one-time-passphrase device like SecurID.
This may be a little expensive up front, but it would cut down on enough fraud that it might pay for itself.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
If only there were a similar piece of malware in direct competition with this particular trojan such that both would attempt to remove the other and successfully do so.
It is interesting how malware is adapting so that not only is it able to spread more quickly to a larger number of machines, but also that it's attempting to increase its lifespan by killing off other malware so that the host may not notice that it's infected. I wonder how long it will be until a particular program updates a virus definition list or something similar to remove all other competing malware programs as they come into existence. Also, how much better will the malware be at quickly patching machines against new zero-day exploits than actual virus scanning and prevention software?
find someone who was recently in debt, and is now very much out of debt
Agreed, let's go after the bailout recipients.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Version 2.0 won't just steal data. It'll make trades. Aside from the obvious theft possibilities, the controller would have the ability to create his very own economic meltdown, in any companies he wished, limited only by the size of his botnet...
It would be nice if they had a list of Antivirus programs that were effective and/or operating systems affected, nice and prominent somewhere linked from the article.
FYI, from the security bulletin:
Affected software:
XP Service Pack 2 & 3
XP Pro x64 and x64 Service Pack 2
Server 2003 Service Packs 1 & 2
Server 2003 x64 and x64 Service Pack 2
Server 2003 with SP1 and SP2 for Itanium
Non-affected:
Win2K SP 4
Vista & Vista SP1
Vista x64&SP1
Server 2008 32
Server 2008 x64
Server 2008 Itanium
--- Thousands are enslaved every day.
you just described the entire slashdot demographic
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Forget tracing back through the network -- find out where the money is going. You have a many-to-one relationship, it's unlikely this guy is smart enough to launder money effectively -- the entire attack scenario points to someone new and inexperienced, and is acting alone hoping this will reduce his risk exposure.
I would imagine the guy who wrote this isn't working alone. Most of these kinds of attacks aren't meant to directly transfer money from the victim's brokerage account to an account controlled by the attacker.
They use the hijacked accounts to purchase large quantities of a low-volume penny stock. The attacker, or the group he works for, already have a large position in that stock. The huge increase in demand pushes the price for the stock up. This causes all kinds of people to sell--including the attacker. And they make a tidy profit, while the victims are left with a large quantity of over-priced stock.
The hard part about catching the perpetrators is sifting through the list of all the people who sold the stock at the inflated prices. A bunch of people make money from a scam like this, but only one is the criminal.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
I'm okay with this worm stealing data so long as it put a little more effort into it: you know, it could introduce itself as Prince Leta Matobo living in exile in Ghana, spend some time building up a rapport, and then start making suggestions about making billions of dollars using 100% guaranteed modalities.
This automated stealing of data is just bullshit.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Err, no. You might have the most likely demographic right, but that's just because they contain the majority of crackers. As for the debt, it is very unlikely someone in that demographic managed to accumulate a lot of debt.
What I'm pretty sure you got completely wrong is the acting alone part. You do not profit of this kind of targeted scheme by working alone. You either have a taskmaster who requested this info, or you know the people who will be able to profit from this info.
Really, nice try, but I'm pretty sure you have no idea who the crackers really are, and how they operate. I don't know em personally either, but I've got enough experience with DSM and psychological profiling to call shenanigans on your assessment.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Link it with possible terrorism to bypass the usual rules that would prevent a dragnet, and chances are good you find your man. At least, that's how I'd investigate.
Well then thank goodness you're not investigating. Crap like this is the exact reason many of us were outraged at the Patriot Act and similar legislation; back in 2001-2 we argued that such legislation would become an easy way for investigators to ignore the Constitution for a host of other crimes. There's been plenty of evidence of that happening already, but it's rare to see someone openly advocate such an abuse of law -- usually, in fact, conservatives defended these laws by saying they would never be used against anyone but the most dangerous international terrorists.
It's only illegal if your name isn't SONY or BMG. If your name IS SONY or BMG, you simply need to deposit two iTunes songs on the machine, and you're held harmless.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
I was about to post the same exact words. The analysis is completely faulty, based on some incredibly vague and unrelated statistics, and the call to action includes zero verification of those assumptions. Narrowing the US population to the specified profile would probably provide a single hit, but that hit would also almost certainly not be related to the trojan. That's because this is a pure case of garbage in, garbage out.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
-OR-
Investors, having heard that Obama has the successful in his cross hairs and intends to seize the fruits of their labor and give it to the unsuccessful in the name of fairness, are panicking.
Don't you mean the fruits of other people's labor. Last time I checked investors don't actually produce anything.
I don't know em personally either, but I've got enough experience with DSM and psychological profiling to call shenanigans on your assessment.
And yet you don't state your qualifications. Well, here's mine: I have been in information technology for eleven years, have done network and system administration at the enterprise level, and have assisted investigators tracking down so-called "hackers". I also have about four years of programming experience, mostly to support the aforementioned. I also have spent a significant portion of my professional time learning digital forensics, taking apart malware kits, and have friends that do skip-tracing professionally (they track people down, and I know people who do civil and criminal). I have also worked on classified government systems (can't say which, obviously), and busted two people on-site who attempted to access information without authorization on those systems (the men with shotguns came and took them away). I do know what to look for, and I have caught people who thought they were so very much smarter than we were. Repeatedly, and sometimes in the flesh.
You're right, I have no idea who this person or people are. That said, if this guy was working with a herder or someone with access, the vector would have been found by now. It hasn't, which means they're not using an established botnet for deployment. Not only that, but while some of the programmic methods may be similar, that alone shouldn't make an investigator jump to the conclusion the two are in contact with one another. Especially not with the volumes of security research on how these networks operate available to the public. Even slashdot has published links to the aforementioned! All this said, again, you're also right that I don't have a degree in psychology, or criminal profiling, etc. -- I just deal with these people on the front line and I'm going by what my gut and my experience tells me should be there. A real profiler would start with known facts, which I don't have, and have a support team to get definitive answers, which I also don't have. It's still a lot better of an educated guess than most people here could make.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Yes yes, we've always known that it's harder to be good than evil. We've got thousand year old texts on the subject, we have pop sci-fi trilogies (ahem) on the subject. It's a known deal.
Me personally, I'd rather see a few thousands die than see our country go down the path of least resistance. I've been unfortunate enough to see both occur during the past decade.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.