More On Korgo

By | May 31, 2004

More on the phishing worm I mentioned in a previous post.

Mikko H. Hypponen of F-Secure has passed on a little more information. He says it’s “pretty big, but still far away from outbreaks like Sasser or Mydoom”. So far “at least 50,000 machines are infected worldwide, possibly more”. He says Korgo does “specifically target at least three online banking systems, but I don’t want to go into details”. But since it also “collects anything typed at the computer keyword, it basically targets any bank where users can access their account without a one-time password”. That would mean a lot of data to shovel back to scam HQ; I’m assuming it limits keylogging to when the user is browsing, but Mikko doesn’t say more on that.

He points out that while this is the first automatic — in other words, it doesn’t use email or other methods to get around — worm to do this bank website keylogging, it’s not the first virus. In fact, the same Russian hacker group he believes is responsible for this worm, the HangUP Team, were also believed to be behind Webber and Banker, two other bank-related viruses.

Mikko also reminds us of the history of bank-related viruses, including the Bugbear.B worm, which contained a long list of target banks, and collected cached passwords. Which I suppose raises the old question: Does a phisher have to involve some sort of social engineering to be a phisher? Given that the guys doing this kind of thing all seem to be members of the same gang, does it matter what name we give it?