TROJAN MAKER TAKE OVER COMPUTER CODE

Source: McAfee Labs, Inside the World of the Citadel Trojan Executive Summary Consequently, in the second half of 2012 we began to see Citadel variants designed to penetrate local government and large private enterprise IT infrastructure. CitadelвЂ™s developers, however, have clearly recognized that sometimes data, particularly authentication credential data, can be more valuable than currency. The Zeus malware platform was originally designed to steal currency, frequently in small amounts from thousands of victims.

The malicious actors behind Citadel then started to target public and private organizations, especially located in Europe, harvesting credentials to access internal applications and information management systems.

TROJAN MAKER TAKE OVER COMPUTER CODE

The huge botnet behind it gave it the power to execute code on the enslaved computers, infecting them with malware from scareware to ransomware. BelorossovвЂ™s Citadel botnet contained personal information from the infected victim computers, including online banking credentials for U.S.-based financial institutions with federally insured deposits, credit card information, and other personally identifying information.Д¬itadel was not only capable of stealing money, but also personal data. Belorossov remotely controlled over 7,000 victim bots, including at least one infected computer system with an IP address resolving to the Northern District of Georgia. In 2012, Belorossov downloaded a version of Citadel, which he then used to operate a Citadel botnet primarily from Russia.

Belorossov distributed and installed Citadel, a sophisticated malware that infected over 11 million computers worldwide, onto victim computers using a variety of infection methods. The banking Trojan soon became a type of malware distributed at a massive scale, as shown in this FBI press release issued when CitadelвЂ™s maker was convicted:Дimitry Belorossov, a/k/a Rainerfox, has been sentenced to four years, six months in prison following his guilty plea for conspiring to commit computer fraud. Quick backgroundД¬itadel emerged in 2011, when cyber criminals used the leaked ZeuS code to create new and advanced malware strains that could do more harm while going undetected for longer. The new strain is currently targeting banks in France and it was also spotted being delivered with Teslacrypt. More than 6 months after its creator was sentenced to prison, the infamous Citadel malware resurges in a modified form, called Atmos.

Trojan maker take over computer