Thursday, March 5, 2009

Facebook 'Koobface' Viruses Getting Smarter, More Dangerous


Back in October, a virus by the name of Koobface, a nasty trickster that appeared in the form of messages pointing to supposedly racy videos, was reported. It worked by clicking a link in the message and then you'd be directed to download a new video player, which was in actuality the virus, itself, quickly taking over your profile and spreading to your friends. Koobface is sadly still around, now in its 28th revision, and is getting smarter and trickier, but no less annoying.

The basics are still the same: It's still shown as a link to a supposed video that prompts you to install a new version of Adobe's Flash player, the most common format used for Web videos. These days, though, that ambush page is a lot sneakier, showing the profile picture of the user whose compromised profile got you in the mess in the first place, and making the whole scam look more genuine. If you install the downloaded file, the virus will look into the stored information on your computer from Facebook, compromise your profile, and send itself to all your friends -- likely making them a little less than thrilled with you.

As before, the best way to avoid it is to make sure links to videos from friends are genuine. And if you see a message like the above, asking you to install a new version of Flash, don't do it.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The minute you open your computer you run the risk of someone hacking into it. Spywares don't work. There's a great website that teaches people how to hack. It is called the ethical hacker and though their instructions are very technical anyone with the time and smarts can do it too.