Backoff Malware Hits Hundreds Of Unnamed Retail, Restaurant and Other Businesses
A new kind of malware, known as Backoff, is hitting restaurants, retailers and other businesses, and its attacking the remote-desktop applications utilized by point-of-sale systems to get customer information, which includes credit card information.
Both the U.S. Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security released inforamtion about the malware, saying it’s so new that antivirus programs have no signatures to identify it just yet.
Trustwave Threat Intelligence Manager Karl Sigler said nearly 600 brick-and-mortar businesses, both small and large, have been affected. Trustwave is a security company that assisted in uncovering the malware. A criminal investigation is currently underway. Therefore, the businesses affected have yet to be named.
Backoff enables cybercriminals to get into the remote-access software that vendors often use for point-of-sale systems when issues crop up for those systems. Sigler said once the malware gets installed on the remote software – usually due to weak passwords – it silently waits for credit card information to be entered in, encrypts the information and emails that information to the cyberthieves. It doesn’t matter if the credit card is swiped or the number is entered manually, Backoff can log the keystrokes.
Sigler said to date there are no signs of fraudulent activities taking place on the credit cards. The matter, however, is disturbing, he said. He said it’s shining a light that vendor are not employing the right techniques to protect themselves from these kinds of attacks.
Sigler said the ironic part about it all is that Internet shopping is far more secure than physical store shopping, and that’s because a person has control over their own computer.
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