There is a virus out there that is not something to take lightly. It is called the ‘Odd Job’ Trojan. It is a particularly nasty Trojan that tries to separate you from the money in your bank account. How does it accomplish this? In a nutshell, once your PC has been infected, the Trojan waits until you log into your bank account website. Then it hijacks your banking session by piggybacking on your live bank session allowing the attacker to perform any transactions that the victim is permitted to do. In addition, the Trojan will attempt to keep the banking session open for the attacker, even after the victim has closed their session. In most cases, when the victim tries to close their banking session, it will just appear that the bank server response is slow or your browser locked up, so you’ll close your browser unaware that a hacker is still logged into your bank account performing transactions.
How do you protect yourself?
I recommend the following.
- Make sure your anti-virus and malware security software is aware of this Trojan and has a fix in their definition file. Then you need to make sure your security software is up to date.
- If you run into the situation where you are logged into your bank account and when you log out you do not receive a confirmation message, keep trying to log out until you do receive a confirmation that you have logged out. If you believe that you have fallen victim of this Trojan, your only recourse may be to monitor what is happening to your account and report it to your bank, explaining to them that you believe you are a victim of this malware. The kind of help you will receive will depend on your bank’s policies.
The main thing to keep in mind is that you need to have a quality security software installed on all of your PCs and it needs to be setup to automatically update at least every few hours. This needs to be installed and setup before you become a victim because it is easier to prevent somebody from taking your money than it is to get your money back once it is gone.
