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janrinok writes:

An international operation involving law enforcement agencies and private sector companies is combating the threat from a type of malicious software (malware) used by criminals to steal from bank accounts. In the first project of its kind for a UK law enforcement agency, the National Crime Agency has brought together partners from the law enforcement and private sectors [nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk], including the FBI, Europol, BAE Systems Applied Intelligence, GCHQ, Dell SecureWorks, Kaspersky Lab and the German Federal Police (BKA) to jointly address the Shylock trojan.

As part of this activity, law enforcement agencies are taking action to disrupt the system which Shylock depends on to operate effectively. This comprises the seizure of servers which form the command and control system for the trojan, as well as taking control of the domains Shylock uses for communication between infected computers. This has been conducted from the operational centre at the European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) at Europol in The Hague. Investigators from the NCA, FBI, the Netherlands, Turkey and Italy gathered to coordinate action in their respective countries, in concert with counterparts in Germany, Poland and France.

Shylock — so called because its code contains excerpts from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice — has infected at least 30,000 computers running Microsoft Windows worldwide. Intelligence suggests that Shylock has to date targeted the UK more than any other country, although the suspected developers are based elsewhere. The NCA is therefore coordinating international action against this form of malware.

Symantect describe the Trojan here [symantec.com], although this assessment was made in 2011 and the number of infections is significantly lower than the current estimates stated above.

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Original Submission