Trojan.Zbot!gen44

This malware since our last update has had 3 different variations with a few changes and still has a low threat rate. However let us jump into this malware and see what the major changes were, and what they could mean for you. Now please keep in mind that this family is known as the Zeus Bot which was a big threat "back in the day".



Effects
This malware was designed to specifically go after important bank information and goes through a number of ways to get it. The trojan will even try to go through your saved files and passwords on internet explorer to retrieve important passwords.  While this malware is hard to deal with if you don't have Antivirus it is actually a very low level threat as far as malware goes. While the malware may pose a threat to infected computers there are not a lot of infections. According to Symantec there could be as few as 1,000 (at the time of this post) worth of infected computers. Now if you believe you are one of these few then be careful and try to remove the malware as fast as possible. This malware is controlled by the creator or a bot program and it can be commanded to:  shutdown the computer, reboot the computer, delete files, and delete important system files which requires you to reinstall the operating system. However, you need to keep in mind that these threats are not as bad as other malware because you still have full access to your computer and you remove the malware with a simple secondary scanner that are in the lists below.

Detection

While this malware is not the easiest to detect, there are some obvious signs. The first one being strange or unscheduled shutdowns/restarts. This is generally the sign of malware or some sort of malware issue. You might also (hopefully not) get a warning from one of your accounts, whether it is Google, Paypal or anything else please read these if you know they are from the real company. Your computer will also start to slowdown from the malware which is typical. 

Please Follow My Removal and Protection Guide

Removal 
You can remove the malware by using the secondary scanners below, and they will detect the malware. However,you need to realize that if one of them says that your computer is safe there is still a chance that the computer is infected with some sort of malware. So make sure to use two or three of the scanners below. I recommend that you use Malwarebytes and HitmanPro because they are the most powerful secondary scanners on the market. With this malware we also recommend that you change any and all passwords that could have been compromised from this attack, because if you don't the person that sent you the malware might be able to access your accounts and change the log in information.

Protection
If you want to protect against the malware you will want an up to date antivirus and firewall. I recommend that you use Ad Aware Antivirus or Avast Free Antivirus because these two have always found malware that someone else has missed. But make sure that you only use one of the above antivirus products because we want to avoid confliction between them. For your firewall I recommend that you use Comodo free firewall which offers the best HIPS protection in the industry, and it contains a ton of extra features like the Sandbox and the Comodo Kiosk.


Secondary Malware Scanners
 HitmanPro: http://www.surfright.nl/en/hitmanpro/
Active Scan: http://www.pandasecurity.com/homeusers/solutions/activescan/
Malwarebytes: http://www.malwarebytes.org/
Super AntiSpyware: http://www.superantispyware.com/
Bitdefender Quick Scan: http://quickscan.bitdefender.com/
Norton Power Eraser: http://security.symantec.com/nbrt/npe.aspx