New virus infects ATM , steals money from banks

Moscow: Automatic Teller Machines (ATM) may not be a safe way of transaction anymore as a new software virus has been found out which infects ATMs to steal money from bank accounts of their users. Doctor Web and 'Kaspersky Lab, two major anti-virus software producers have discovered such virus in the networks of several bank ATMs, which is able to collect information from bank cards.

This is a malicious program intended to infect and survive in ATMs. It is possible that new software will appear, aimed at illegitimately using banking information and removing funds," an official of the Kaspersky Lab was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti news agency.

According to the official, the virus is a Trojan which is able to infect the popular American Diebold brand of ATMs, used in Russia and Ukraine. Judging by the programming code used, there is a high probability that the programmer comes from one of the former Soviet republics.

The computer security experts say the number of infected ATMs is minimal but individual bank cardholders will not be able to detect whether an ATM is infected or not. However, banks can run security software to find out if their machines are at risk.

Courtesy: http://www.siliconindia.com

Chinese hackers infiltrate Indian embassy data

Toronto: China based hackers have infiltrated computers and stolen documents from hundreds of government and private offices around the world, including those of the Indian embassy in the U.S. and the Dalai Lama's organization, Canadian researchers said.

A vast electronic spying operation system, which infiltrated the computers, was being controlled from computers based exclusively in China, said the researchers in a report to be issued shortly. But they could not say conclusively that the Chinese government was involved. The group did also not identify the Indian embassies which were targeted.

The office of the Dalai Lama in India had asked the researchers based at the Munk Center for International Studies at the University of Toronto, to examine its computers for signs of malicious software, or malware.

Their examination unearthed a broader e-spying operation that, in less than two years, has infiltrated at least 1,295 computers in 103 countries, including many belonging to Indian embassies as well as the Dalai Lama's Tibetan exile centers in India, Brussels, London and New York.

The researchers believed that the e-spying operation, which they called GhostNet, had hacked into the computer systems at embassies of countries like Pakistan, Germany, Indonesia, Thailand and South Korea. The networks at foreign ministries of Bhutan, Bangladesh, Latvia, Indonesia, Iran and the Philippines, had been found similarly hacked.

Courtesy: http://www.siliconindia.com