More Than Half Of Major Banks Infected With Conficker, Zeus, Fake AV, Other Malware

BLACK HAT USA -- Las Vegas, NV -- Users who get hit with malware infections tend to be repeat offenders, and 18 of the 24 largest banks around the world suffer from infamous malware, such as Conficker, DNS Changer, Gameover Zeus, BlackHole Exploit Kit, and fake antivirus, according to new data.

Lookingglass Cyber Solutions yesterday released the new data on banks, which it says demonstrates a trend in reinfections, many of which are caused by supply-chain partners.

Sourcefire, meanwhile, found that more than 65 percent of users infected with malware were reinfected two or more times. Around 1.6 percent of users are polluted with more than 100 different infections, its data shows.

"A user who undertakes risky Internet behavior isn't going to change just because he saw a virus warning," says Adam O'Donnell, chief architect at Sourcefire. "It could also be a situation where it's not really the end users' fault ... it might be some downloader no one has caught yet and is resident, stays there, backs off, and show up a week later. Or an infection may not totally have been cleaned up."

O'Donnell says one of the key solutions is silent software updating for users.

Meanwhile, Lookingglass studied 42 million infected IP addresses in March, 40 pecent of which suffered multiple infections. Derek Gabbard, Lookingglass's CEO, says third parties are a big issue. "It's banks and their suppliers," companies such as CheckFree or Sunguard, that partner with banks, he says.

"The banks are quick to deal with it. Some of their providers have instances of Conficker, DNS Changer, [and others]," he says. "They haven't been as motivated."

Gabbard says his firm has seen reinfections occurring regularly, and it's usually coming from less-diligent partners who expose their partners such as banks that are diligent in their security.

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