New virus raids your bank account - but you won't notice

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New virus raids your bank account - but you won't notice

The best way to protect yourself from an online financial scam is to diligently check your bank accounts. At least, until now.

Israeli-based Security firm Trusteer has found an elaborate new computer virus that not only helps fraudsters steal money from bank accounts -- it also covers its tracks.

Think of a crime plot involving a spy who plans to break into a high-security building and begins by swapping out security camera video so guards don't notice anything is amiss. Known as a surveillance camera hack, the technique has been used in dozens of movies.

A new version of the widely prevalent SpyEye Trojan horse works much the same way, only it swaps out banking Web pages rather than video, preventing account holders from noticing that their money is gone.

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'A very scary tactic'
The virus' evidence-covering techniques are elaborate. First, it keeps track of all fraud committed by the criminal, and makes sure to remove those line items from online transaction lists.  It also edits balance amounts to prevent consumers from getting suspicious.

"This is a very scary tactic," said Avivah Litan, a financial fraud analyst at consulting firm Gartner. "Everybody thinks all they have to do is check their transactions and their balances. That's not true anymore."

The new virus technique ups the ante in the cat-and-mouse game between security companies and the computer criminals who try to steal consumers' money.  Consumer reports of fraud are still a very important part of fraud-fighting techniques, Litan said.

"Most banks 'let the first transaction through,' because if they stopped everything that was potentially fraud, consumers would get annoyed," she said.  In some cases, fraud-checking tools kick in only after initial reports, so this version of SpyEye could buy criminals important time as they try to turn stolen data into cash.

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