Online banking customers have been warned about a powerful computer virus which steals personal details.
Web security company Trusteer said users should be aware that the Zeus 1.6 virus can infiltrate Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers for fraudulent purposes.
Of the 5.5 million computers the company monitors in the US and UK, one in every three thousand was found to be infected with Zeus.
The program steals the details of
online banking customers by recording log in information when on targeted websites, which is then passed on to internet fraudsters to sell.
Amit Klein, chief technology officer at Trusteer, strongly advised internet users to make sure their anti-virus software is fully up to date to avoid such incidents.
"We expect this new version of Zeus to significantly increase fraud losses, since nearly 30 per cent of internet users bank online with Firefox and the infection is growing faster than we have ever seen before," he explained.
Dr JD Marsters, from the department of electronics and computer science at the University of Southampton, said it is an ongoing "game of cat and mouse" between malware vendors and anti-virus developers attempting to halt their progress.
