Center for Strategic and International Studies, CSIS has found that the complete source code for the ZeuS botnet crime kit is being distributed on several underground forums as well as through other channels. CSIS has also collected several addresses from where Zeus source code is being distributed in a compressed zip archive. The company says it has also downloaded, unzipped and compiled the code to confirm its authenticity. Peter Kruse, Partner & Security Specialist, CSIS says, “We can hereby confirm that the complete ZeuS/Zbot source code is freely available for inspection, inspiration or perhaps to be compiled and used in future attacks. ”
ZeuS/Zbot is already considered as being amongst the most pervasive banking Trojan in the global threat landscape. It is an advanced crime kit and very configurable. With the release and leakage of the source code the ZeuS/Zbot could easily become even more widespread and an even bigger threat than it already is today.
The source code would greatly help security companies analyze how this advanced botnet really works and this could mark a breakthrough for the industry, which is struggling to keep pace with the highly advanced malware being developed, which are increasingly difficult to detect. However, this would also give other malware writers a head-start for advanced virus and botnet writing.
Infosec India 