Microsoft has always been concerned about security for its user groups and has always been providing security updated to its users in order to safeguard against online threats and hackers.
MSRT (Malicious Software Removal Tool) is one of the greatest efforts started by Microsoft. MSRT is a free tool provided by Microsoft which performs a complete scan and checks for infections on system running on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 2003 Server operating systems.
It specifically scans the system to find and remove malicious software like Sasser, Mydoom, and Blaster infections.
Once the scan and removal of malicious software is completed, it also shows the complete report containing the information of detection and removal.
This tool is regularly updated on Microsoft’s website and it is always advisable to have such tools on your computer as it may not appear that the system is infected with such infection until such a anti-malware program detects and notifies you.
Recently, Microsoft has detected and removed the Zeus malware from over the 275,000 computers running on Windows operating system. This malware was known to steal financial information from a OC.
Zeus can also be termed as Zbot, which is a type of Trojan. It is secretly installed on your computer using a spyware or keylogger program. Once installed, it steals secure information, like user names, passwords, financial data, from your computer. Hackers mostly use these malwares to trap the user behaviors from the system as and can collect financial information like credit card information and online banking credential. The information can further cab be used to withdraw amount from user’s accounts and misuse the credit card information.
This time Zeus malware had targeted Charles Schwab investment accounts. They were projecting a fake from during the financial session to collate the personal information from the company’s website. They were intended to use this personal information to make illegal transactions in future.
This scan could only be possible when Microsoft added a new update for Zeus/Zbot updated to its MSRT on last Tuesday. The moment this update was launched and installed, it started detecting this bot on Windows based machines and it this MSRT tool has already detected and removed 281,491 instances of Zeus malware from 274,873 system in all over the world. It was also announced on Microsoft’s official blog on last Sunday.
The Zeus malware first came into notice in the year of 2007 when almost 100 gang memers were arrested in UK, US and Ukraine.
This group reportedly stole almost $200 from the online bank customers and small business owners.
Such event brought the concern of security in Microsoft security teams and they started developing protections for Zeus and Zbot malware.
The MSRT tool is available free of cost on Microsoft’s website and can be installed manually as well. The updates are done automatically if the automatic update services are turned on in your computer.
Quote from a Zbot user from another forum:
No more zeus.
Microsoft relased update (malware removal tool) that remove zbot from windows PCs.
My bots are dropping like my balls.
1k+ bots dropped in 2 days.
Zeus author stopped development of the malware.
Source code sold to Spyeye author.
Let's see what Carperb is going to do
