Computer nasty targets banks

By RICHARD WOOD

The latest computer virus threat has a hidden agenda aimed at the banking industry and includes most of New Zealand's leading banks on its target list of 1200.

Bugbear.B is one of a family of viruses that are hitting New Zealand shores at a rate of tens of thousands a week.

Internet provider Xtra says it is stopping BugBear.B and its variants with its virus-checking software at the rate of 3000-4000 a day.

BugBear.B is particularly difficult to identify in emails because it changes its subject lines and attachment names, even using names off words and names from people's own systems.

When it infects a personal computer, the BugBear. B virus checks to see if a victim's email address contains a bank's name. If it finds one it captures further information to use in computer hacking attacks against the bank and sends it to 10 of its own email addresses.

Paul Gregory, spokesman for Westpac, said its particular email systems were not vulnerable to BugBear.B and the bank had upgraded its virus protection to block it.

Jay Garden, manager at the Centre for Critical Infrastructure Protection, said the virus was an indicator that virus creators were moving into electronic fraud.

The centre listed an advisory about the BugBear.B virus on June 6.

The worry for the public is that the virus implants a keystroke logger to gather passwords.

The advisory, obtained from the Australian Computer Emergency Response Team, also notes the virus can terminate security software on a system and open a back door for hackers to take control of the PC.

Garden said anti-virus firms responded to the virus rapidly. Computer users who had updated their antivirus software should be unaffected. Personal firewalls would detect any attempt by the virus to send out information from a PC across the internet.

The centre did not try to warn of all virus issues because there are more than 10,000 a year and the information was largely irrelevant once the antivirus vendors dealt with it, Garden said.

Phillip McIntosh, of internet service provider ihug, said New Zealand's time zone was a big plus in protecting computer users here from viruses.

By the time most of them arrived, the antivirus firms had sent out patches which are automatically implemented by many companies and some internet providers.

McIntosh said that a virus originating in New Zealand could cause havoc here. In one example last month, ihug had to hold mail for three hours until a patch arrived.

Mcintosh said antivirus firms were developing a more generic "profile" stopping system to cover that initial difficult period until the virus was defined and an antidote created.

Ihug has made its antivirus service free for its email customers and is now considering making the service "opt-out", which means the antivirus filter will be the default setting unless customer choose otherwise.

McIntosh said email filtering at the ISP level would always be better than individuals' antivirus systems because the ISP should always have the latest updates running.

Xtra, the country's largest ISP, implemented mandatory antivirus checking last July and reports it has stopped 11 million viruses since then.

A spokeswoman said that BugBear.B's ability to turn off antivirus software did not work against Xtra's system.

Virus protection

Use an internet provider that offers an antivirus service.

Install antivirus software and have it check all incoming files and emails.

Set your antivirus software to regularly and automatically download updates.

Install personal firewall software and allow communication with only internet services you trust.

Don't open email attachments if you are at all suspicious of who sent them, and don't know what they are.

Beware of hoax warnings that may even include a virus in them.

Disconnect from the net when you don't need it, turn off your Machine when you're not using it.

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