B: IT BACKGROUND OF THE ISSUE
A Trojan is a program that appears to be legitimate but is designed to have destructive effects on the data residing in the computer onto which it is loaded. It is a nonreplicating computer program planted illegally in another program to do damage locally when the software is activated. [ ownee.com]
When a Trojan detects a particular sequence of numbers and letters like the address of a banking website it creates a fake web page in which users enter data and when they send the mail., the data directly goes reaches the criminals. [theage.com]
ANZ warned its customers about the hacking of the online banking portal by a virus that saves personal details and sends them to the hackers. Customers who accessed the banking portal lost important data. The Trojan horse stores personal data by planting malicious codes and scanning sequences of letters and numbers with a keyboard scanner. The data reaches the place where the hackers are operating from and they gain easy access to such private and confidential data.
C: IMPACT OF THE ISSUE
The Trojan horse also known as Trojan is a virus that appears to perform a desirable function but in fact performs secretive malicious functions which enable unauthorized access to the user’s machine. [answers.com]
This issue is not related specifically to ANZ Bank. It is related to all banks in general and this problem of hacking by Trojan horses can occur in various other banks as well. Customers will face severe losses if personal and sensitive information falls in the hands of hackers and this may eventually affect thousands of customers and the entire bank may shutdown due to disappointment of customers and loss of trust in the bank. If customers are disappointed they will close their accounts in the bank and on seeing this other customers will also lose trust and do the same. The banks reputation will face a severe blow. It will run of business and be forced to shutdown.
D: PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS
The virus requests users to fill in their personal details by generating a fake page and transfers the data to the place where the hackers are operating.
A fake page is created which requests the account holders to fill in their personal details; the data is stored and automatically sent to the hackers. This has been described as a very advanced way of stealing information. Trojan horses are planted illegally to cause damage and have destructive effects on their activation.
Solutions to the problem:
No ANZ emails would ask customer for personal information and the bank advised customers to call its online banking help desk on 13 33 50. The bank asked its customers to delete all emails which requested them to enter private details and to immediately report this to the online banking help desk. To prevent the virus which could arrive with any attachment the bank recommended usage of advanced antivirus software. The bank issued a warning to its customers to be careful of changes on websites of banks. If there is any problem of any kind the customers should immediately call the company and ask for solutions to the problem. [theage.com]
As a Trojan horse has many forms, there is no standardized way to delete them. The easiest responses used to clear temporary internet files and to delete them. Normally, s detect and remove Trojans, however if the virus cannot be found by the antivirus, booting the computer from other sources, such as a , allow an antivirus program to delete a Trojan. Updated programs can also be of great use. Most Trojans also hide in registries, and processes. [answers.com]
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Keys for generation of signatures and encryption can be stored on smartcards which depends on the concrete implementation. [pc1news.com]
E: REFERENCES
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May 2009, Chris Zapone, business. smh. com. au , ANZ warns of malicious virus (2009-2-15)
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(2009-2-16)
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(2009-2-15)
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/ (2009-2-15)
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March 2006, ownee. Com, (2009-2-15)
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June 2009, ,rushmoredrive. com,Trojan horse, (2009-2-15)
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December 2009 ,google. com, (2009-2-15)
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Secureflorida.org, (2009-2-17)