Bank says I have a Trojan Virus on my notebook

Asked by Ian Lovejoy

I installed Ubuntu 10.10 on my notebook 2 March 2011 as a dual boot with Windows 7.

My wife accessed our internet bank account on 7 March 2011 using Firefox 3.6.15 and she paid a bill.

On 9 March 2011 our internet bank account was blocked -- we could not access it.

So my wife phoned the bank using the number on the site (which was the same as one of the numbers we had previously received in literature). The operator told her she had a Trojan virus on her computer and she had to scan the computer for a virus.

The bank operator said they would unblock our account but if they found another Trojan virus they would block our account indefinitely until we could "prove we had no virus on our notebook"!

The bank recommended Kaspersky. We downloaded and installed a free trial version of Kaspersky and did a full scan on the 2 Windows systems ( one Windows 7 and the other XP ). Kaspersky reported both Windows computers were safe and found no virus on either of them.

I examined the history on Firefox and the only access recorded on 7 March 2011 is in the history of Ubuntu Firefox. My wife DID NOT access our bank account from a MS Windows notebook.

My wife does all our internet banking and she noted there is a new security logo on the web site. A logo she has not seen before.

My questions are:-
    Does my bank have its facts straight?
    Could I have a Trojan virus on my ubuntu system?
    How would my bank know I had a Trojan virus on my ubuntu notebook?
    Could the banks system be geared for MS Windows and find a false positive on Ubuntu (linux) systems?

When I have your answers, I will contact the bank again and perhaps I might need to speak to a manager rather than the front line operator.

Thank you for your time

Ian Lovejoy

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Ubuntu firefox Edit question
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actionparsnip
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Best actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said :
#1

Your bank is full of crap. Tell them you run Linux which has no wild viruses at all.

You could try another browser. You can also try:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/user-agent-switcher/

To fool the system into thinking you are running Windows. You will probably find your bank's primitive checks make sure you are running a recent Windows version which will not happen as you are using Linux. I suggest you educate your bank and even offer to go into the bank with your netbook and show them what is happening. You can run:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-clamav/ppa; sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get -y install clamav clamtk clamav-freshclam; sudo freshclam

You can then virus scan your OS and show it OS clean. Go educate your bank!!

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Ian Lovejoy (illovejoy) said :
#2

A quick from thank you

I will try this in a 8 hours when I return from 70 mile trip for CT scan

Thanks

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Mika Wahlroos (mpw) said :
#3

I would also suggest the most likely explanation is a false positive from whatever your bank uses to detect malware. It's not, in theory, impossible to have actual malware, but that's very, very unlikely. (Linux malware and attacks exist but they are generally worms targeted at poorly configured or out-of-date servers, not trojans targeted at desktop and laptop systems as is common on Windows.)

I wanted to add that if your bank insists on using a commercial virus scanner or one that's somewhat more well-known than ClamAV (in Windows circles anyway), at least avast! and AVG also seem to offer some kinds of free-of-charge Linux scanners for non-commercial home use. You can search on the web for those. However, I don't know how or if these packages work. I just thought it might be useful to know in case you need something more widely known than ClamAV as a one-time solution to convince the bank folks.

Unfortunately, you might still get just "we don't support Linux" for an answer. :-( Talking to someone higher-up than front-line support might indeed be a good idea.

Good luck!

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Ian Lovejoy (illovejoy) said :
#4

Thanks to EveryOne

I apologise for the delay in finalising this query. If it is any excuse, I am undergoing chemo therapy which makes me tired and forgetful.

Thanks again

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Ian Lovejoy (illovejoy) said :
#5

Thanks actionparsnip, that solved my question.

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said :
#6

No worries, hope it goes well for you