How does the recently discovered OddJob Trojan differ from previous banking Trojans, such as Zeus? Are there particular technological protections we can put in place to prevent infection?
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Michael S. Mimoso, Editorial Director
The most nefarious new feature the OddJob Trojan brings onto the malware landscape is that it keeps Web browser sessions open after users think they have logged out of targeted websites. There are few technical details, but Symantec Corp. does have a write-up in which it outlines the technical details and also specifies best practices users should follow to protect themselves.
When it comes to online security, banking Trojan OddJob differs from the Zeus banking Trojan minimally in its end goal of stealing money from victims, but some of the technical details do differ. The two greatest differences between OddJob and Zeus are the maturity of Zeus and the real-time nature of OddJob. Zeus has been around for a long time compared to the average lifespan of a malware family, and OddJob has just emerged in the last few months. Zeus also has mature functionality for building and managing the malware that is extended as new attacks are developed. OddJob differs from Zeus by operating in real-time, allowing the attacker to continue to use a Web browser session from an infected client to steal money, rather than stealing credentials for later use, as Zeus does. The protections in both cases are the same basic best practices since the most important step is to prevent OddJob (or Zeus) from first getting installed on a system in the first place.
This was first published in August 2011