Zeus was originally discovered in 2006 and was a nasty bit of malware that phished for victims and then spread through infected accounts. It is back doing the same thing, but the code is slightly different (meaning it is getting around protection software). Once Zeus compromises an account and system it sends itself out by sending a message to your contacts/friends. The messages ask you to check out a post or video and once you click on it your account becomes infected and continues the spread of the malware.

However Zeus is not just looking to spam your Facebook friends, it is intent on grabbing your bank information. Zeus sits on your system lying in wait for you to start some online banking. As soon as it detects that it will try to grab your login information and send it home to the Russian Business Network according to reports on this variant of Zeus. After your account is drained Zeus sticks around looking for other information that can be traded or sold (like credit card information).

Although Facebook says they are looking into this n threat there are some that think they are doing very little. Facebook has always come under fire for the lax way they handle malware, fake accounts, fake and malicious pages, as well as other missuses of their network. They appear to much more intent on pushing ads, getting people to pay for posts and changing your page layout every other day than combating any of these issues. We wonder what liability Facebook might have if it comes out that a reported page was the source of an infection that resulted in financial loss. I hope that Facebook changes their course and starts to take this seriously so that we never have to find out. In the mean time we all should exercise more care when clicking on links found on Facebook.

Tell us what you think in our Forum