Virgin alerts customers that are infected with Spyeye Trojan

Virgin Media has alerted around 1,500 customers that their PCs have been infected with a Trojan.

Victims have unwittingly downloaded the Spyeye Trojan, which first appeared in 2009 and which is designed to record every keystroke the victim makes in order to get the log-in details and passwords for their online bank accounts.

The internet service provider (ISP) was alerted to the problem by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA).

Spyeye is rapidly becoming as infamous as the earlier Zeus Trojan as criminals get the online kits to build it to their specifications.  

SOCA, which is due to become part of the new FBI-style UK National Crime Agency, managed to monitor data being sent to criminals and collated a list of IP addresses. Some of which were allocated to the ISP. Virgin could then match the IP addresses to customers.

Letters have been sent to affected Virgin customers, but many others and people with other ISPs could remain infected as SOCA will not have picked up all IP addresses.

Although it is not uncommon for ISPs to alert customers who have been infected, it is believed this is the first time this has happened following a tip off from SOCA.

Last year however Virgin did launch an initiative to combat Zeus, another Trojan used by criminals to steal people's online bank details.

The ISP worked with the Shadowserver Foundation, a non-profit group of computer security experts that track online threats to get the IP addresses of infected PCs.

Virgin is giving customers details on how to get rid of the Trojan and offering a free scan.