Trusteer Ltd. said that the Zeus malware is shifting its focus from banks to payment companies.
In a blog post that the Tel Aviv security company plans to publish Thursday, Trusteer said that the shifting focus of the Zeus bug may indicate that fraudsters have become frustrated with banks, as more banks have been improving their defenses against the threat.
Zeus operates based on a set of instructions called configurations that tell it which websites to target and how to attack each one. For example, one configuration may instruct Zeus to capture login credentials and another might instruct it to tamper with the coding of a website.
Trusteer said it has spotted 26 distinct configurations targeting the online payment provider Money Bookers and 12 targeting the U.K. online payment company Nochex.
Zeus has also begun targeting the prepaid provider NetSpend Holdings Inc.
