Privacy, Security & Virus Information

Online Banking Targeted By Clampi Virus

People who use online banking are under threat from a new Trojan virus, known as the Clampi, which is currently sweeping both the US and UK.

The Clampi virus is a piece of computer code that has already affected over 1,000 computers in the UK, and thousands more in the US.

It works by secretly infiltrating a computer – commonly infecting the machine as an attachment via an email, or website download – and then staying quiet until the operator’s access their financial website, whether they are checking their bank accounts, looking at mortgage statements, or examining savings accounts. The Clampi Trojan then activates, monitoring the information that the user is using to enter their financial site.

Once it gathers this highly personal and confidential information, it sends it back to its creator, computer hackers controlled by gangs of cyber criminals. This they then use to commit online fraud.

With this level of personal information, they can access all number of financial sites and reek havoc, creating spurious accounts, making withdrawals via bank transfers, changing account details and addresses, and even taking complete control over accounts so that even the account holders and account administrators are unaware of the problem.

And the Clampi virus is said to be monitoring at least 5,000 individual financial sites, including most of the UK’s high-street banks, hoping to harvest their cull of personal details with a load of ill-gotten gains. It also targets email provider websites, shopping sites and sites operated by the casinos.

Such is the problem in the US that accounts have already been drained of thousands of dollars. A large number of schools and businesses have already been affected by the Clampi virus.

Computer security experts fear that the Clampi virus represents a major threat and one that could potentially leave people high and dry as accounts are raided and other personal information stolen. Attacks come in waves, as the cyber criminals manipulate their raids on key financial institutions.

Those running Microsoft operating systems appear to be particularly vulnerable to an attach from the Clampi virus.

Warnings are being issued for people not to open unknown email attachments, or download material from websites that they cannot regard as safe. Trojan viruses, such as the Clampi, tend to be delivered embedded in email links, or attachments, or in downloads from spurious websites.

People are being urged to keep their anti-virus software up-to-date at all times.

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