Citadel Trojan

Citadel Trojan, the latest version of Zeus malware, is one the biggest concerns for a great number of various institutions around the world. The former version of Citadel is known for its capability to steal online banking credentials and access online banking accounts, while the new Citadel is now also capable of stealing different intellectual property.

What does Citadel Trojan do?

Citadel Trojan enables remote attackers to access internal networks of various institutions, including healthcare organizations, gas and oil industry, and educational institutions. It has been found out that 27 Japanese and 43 Polish government offices as well as a lot of institutions in Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, Estonia and Czech Republic were affected by Citadel.

According to an analysis of 300 different samples of Citadel, malware researchers drawn a conclusion that it must be a for-hire data-gathering operation initiated by a group of clients.

It is also believed that Citadel Trojan could be a form of hacktivism because of some particular elements present in the binaries of the malware. It was discovered that the Trojan contains reference to poetry, more specifically, to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Due to this discovery, the team of attackers is referred to as the Poetry Group and it is believed to originate from England although the attack servers are known to be located in the United States, Finland and Kuala Lumpur.

If the targeted computer does not have a reliable spyware removal tool, Citadel Trojan can capture the user’s input on the PC.  Moreover, the malicious tools can be applied for dropping additional malware.

How to remove Citadel Trojan?

In order to prevent malware attacks, it is important to minor an internal network of a company or institution. Moreover, a malware prevention application such as SpyHunter is highly recommended; otherwise, remove attackers can easily access the targeted computer and extract the information necessary for further breaches.