We really didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when we discovered this story.

Information security experts SecureWorks reported last week that the author of established financial fraud malware ZeuS is using traditional copy protection methods to defend the latest version.

Zeus is one of the best know banking Trojans. At the most basic level, it works by infecting a targeted computer and allowing the theft of financial and other information from it. The SecureWorks report goes into more detail on exactly what ZeuS can do:

Steals data submitted in HTTP forms

Steals account credentials stored in the Windows Protected Storage

Steals client-side X.509 public key infrastructure (PKI) certificates

Steals FTP and POP account credentials

Steals/deletes HTTP and Flash cookies

Modifies the HTML pages of target websites for information stealing purposes

Redirects victims from target web pages to attacker controlled ones

Takes screenshots and scrapes HTML from target sites

Searches for and uploads files from the infected computer

Modifies the local hosts file (%systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts)

Downloads and executes arbitrary programs

Deletes crucial registry keys, rendering the computer unable to boot into Windows

ZeuS is a sophisticated bit of kit and is sold privately to criminals specialising in financial fraud for $3,000 – $4,000 per copy.

Clearly the author’s criminal clientele have not been playing fair, as SecureWorks report that the latest version of the software is protected by a Microsoft-style, hardware locked license key.

This very traditional piece of copy protection software works by returning an installation code to the vendor the first time the software is installed. This installation code is unique to the machine the software has been installed on and effectively locks the software to that machine, stopping copies being installed on other computers.

With single user licenses going for $3,000-$4,000 dollars this is big business, so it’s not surprising that the software author wants to protect his investment. But given the criminal tendencies of ZeuS’s customer base we wonder how long it will be before they crack his copy protection?

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