Now here’s a piece of malware that is very clever, but in a scary sort of way.  Granted, it is malware, but you won’t know it unless you decide to check your online bank accounts.  When this malware discovers that you are at a bank site, it gets out of it’s dormant stage and starts recording your account credentials.  This little ‘feature’ will make it more difficult to antivirus solutions to identify it since it will not activate until you hit a bank site.  While it does sound like a pain, if you feel like you may have received this malware, go to a bank site and before you insert any information, run a virus scan with updated definitions and signatures.

Hackers infecting browsers with malware that triggers only when customers access bank accounts, is the latest threat to online banking, according to security software supplier F-Secure.

Hackers are acting as a ‘man in the browser’ by intercepting HTML code in the web browser. As bank security measures are curbing more traditional threats such as keystroke logging, phishing and pharming, F-Secure warned the ‘man in the browser’ attack will increase.

Once a user’s PC is infected, the malicious code is only triggered when the user visits an online bank. The ‘man in the browser’ attack then retrieves information, such as logins and passwords, entered on a legitimate bank site. This personal data is sent directly to an FTP site to be stored, where it is sold to the highest bidder.[more]

Tags: Malware