Banking malware Zeus sucessfully bypasses anti-virus detection

According to the Trusteer’s study of 10,000 PCs, the majority of them are not able to recognize trojans, one of the most dangerous globally password-stealer.

As security company Trusteer found, a stealthy piece of malware waiting for PC users to log in to bank websites, Zeus, can be detected in only 23% of cases by AV programs. So, even AV programs with up-to-date malware signatures are mainly unable to detect the infection.

Moreover, Zeus avoids identification using sophisticated techniques such as root-kit technology, going with Zbot and PRG names. Trusteer is able to detect it by examining the fingerprint Zeus leaves when it penetrates an infected PC's browser process.

Thus, recent report estimated Zeus to be No. 1 trojan, with 3.6 million infections in the US alone, or about 1% cent of the installed base of PCs. Trusteer also found Zeus is guilty in 44% of the banking malware infections. After sneaking onto a PC, Zeus sits quietly in the background until a user logs on to a financial website.

About 31% of Zeus-infected machines don't run AV at all and 14% run AV that's out of date, while the rest of 55% had up to date AV programs.