The Clampi virus is spreading across hundreds of thousands of computers. It steals your online banking passwords and log-ins.
Once on the computer, the virus sits unnoticed until the user logs on to bank, credit card or other financial websites. It then captures log-in and password information and sends it to a server run by the attackers. They can then tell the compromised computer to send money to accounts that they control, or they can buy goods with the stolen credit card details.
A new Trojan, Clampi, could give hackers access to your online bank accounts. Follow these steps to ensure your computer is secure.
1) Make sure you are running antivirus software on your computer, and that you have installed the latest virus updates. There are some excellent free antivirus programs available – we recommend Avast! or AVG.
2) Make sure you've got a Firewall installed on your computer to monitor the flow of internet connections in to and out of your machine. We recommend Zone Alarm, which is free.
3) Download and install any critical updates and security patches from your operating system vendor. You can find all the latest bug fixes and patches for the Windows operating system on the Microsoft website.
4) If you're using a Wi-Fi network at home, ensure it is password protected and secure, to prevent other people from being able to piggyback off your connection, or worse, hack into your network and access files and information stored on your computer.
5) When surfing the internet, do not click on any suspicious links, especially in unsolicited emails from unknown senders, or on social networking sites and instant messaging services.
6) Consider using a prepaid credit card when shopping online, to isolate that account from your debit account or those used for online banking. That way, if anyone does make a fraudulent transaction using those card details, they can only spend a restricted amount of money loaded on to the card, and it also operates separately of your current account, meaning not all of your bank details will be compromised. You can find a list of prepaid cards on the Moneysupermarket comparison site.
7) If you do fall prey to Clampi, or other similar viruses, make sure you change password and login details for all banking and finance accounts that may have been compromised by the infection.
The virus has a list of more than 4,500 finance-related websites that it monitors, including British high street banks.
Security experts warned that it was one of the stealthiest and most pervasive threats to computers using the Microsoft Windows operating systems.
Monitor your accounts closely.
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