I wrote about the Zeus trojan a few days ago. That bit of malware has been around for months although the latest version sends fake email messages claiming to be from LinkedIn with a contact request. Any Windows user who clicks on the request then has a keylogging program installed in their PC that steals user names, passwords, and other information and secretly sends that information to the criminals.
On Tuesday, police in London arrested 19 people who are accused of being part of a cybercrime ring that stole about £6 million from UK banks. On Wednesday, police in New York City arrested 11 more. Similar arrests have been made in other cities around the world.
The Department of Justice and Manhattan District Attorney say they’ll disclose more details about the case later. The UK banks involved include the Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC holdings.
If you receive a request from LinkedIn or any suspicious request from any other social networking service, do NOT click on the link! Manually go to the service by entering its URL (address) in your web browser to go to the web site you think you are accessing. Even that isn’t foolproof but it will avoid most problems.
Never rely on clicking on a link supplied by someone else.
You can find many more stories about the recent arrests if you start at http://goo.gl/3OCj
