Banks are warily eyeing an army of infected computers that could be directed to seek illicit funds from customer accounts.

A wave of rogue emails--some purporting to be from UPS and Fedex, others offering a PDF with a map of top tourist destinations--has been sent out worldwide, which has resulted in lots of malware loading on computers. Commtouch says a record 25 billion malicious emails were sent on one day in the middle of August. Some experts think that another wave of malicious emails must be on the way, if history is any guide. The malware could be used for a host of illicit purposes, including trying to steal information necessary to access bank accounts online. No one knows for sure, other than the authors, what the real purpose of the email wave is. But it's obviously not an altruistic endeavor.

It's fair to say that the level of sophistication of malware that targets banks--online and via mobile apps--has stepped up in recent months. For example, the Ramnit malware, according to Trusteer, is a powerful new weapon. The CTO of Trusteer told Dark Reading that, "The metamorphosis of Ramnit into financial malware is a sign of things to come now that the Zeus source code has been made openly available to anyone on the Internet. Unlike the past, when financial institutions had to defend against a limited number of malware platforms, attacks can now come from virtually any malicious software program -- old or new. The malware distribution channel for fraudsters has increased in scale significantly."

For more:
- here's the ComputerWorld article  
- here's the Dark Reading article

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