780+ viruses target online banking daily – top antivirus company

Banking security has been a hot topic recently. The launch of financial management app 22Seven, for instance, sparked debate about the safety of inputting your banking details to a third-party. It seems, however, that there are much bigger threats out there.

According to leading online security provider Kaspersky, around 780 new malicious programmes designed to steal users’ online banking data are detected every day. This number, it claims, accounts for 1.1% of the total number of daily malware “detected by the company’s software”.

The online security giant reckons that Trojan bankers have been detected on an average of 2 000 unique users’ computers per day.

The most notable Trojan discovered by the company is called Trojan Banker.MSIL.MultiPhishing.gen and is reportedly designed “ to steal account details from clients of numerous banks including Santander, HSBC Bank UK, Metro Bank, Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB, and Barclays”.

According to Kaspersky:

After launching, the Trojan waits for an online banking service to start running. It then opens a window that imitates an authorisation form for the respective bank. Interestingly, the Trojan allows no mistakes, checking the accuracy of the data that is entered.

The fraudsters end up obtaining confidential information that gives them full access to the victim’s bank account. It should be noted that the Trojan primarily targets users from the UK, with over 90% of the antivirus detections for this banker being recorded there.

While that particular Trojan mainly affects people with UK bank accounts, the specific type of malware affects users from around the world.

In fact three of the BRICS giants top the list of the most frequently targeted countries with Brazil coming in top (16.9% of detections), followed by Russia (15.8%) and China (10.8%).