[Vision2020] Tech Note: Facebook Koobface worm & others

[Kenneth Marcy]

As Facebook works to make itself more relevant and timely for its growing 
member base with a profile page makeover, attackers seem to be working 
overtime to steal the identities of the friends, fans and brands that connect 
though the social-networking site.

Indeed, Facebook has seen five different security threats in the past week. 
According to Trend Micro, four new hoax applications are attempting to trick 
members into divulging their usernames and passwords. And a new variant of 
the Koobface worm is running wild on the site, installing malware on the 
computers of victims who click on a link to a fake YouTube video.

The Koobface worm is dangerous. It can be dropped by other malware and 
downloaded unknowingly by a user when visiting malicious Web sites, Trend 
Micro reports. When attackers execute the malware, it searches for cookies 
created by online social networks. The latest variant is targeting Facebook, 
but earlier variants have also plagued MySpace. 

More of this story can be found at:
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nf/20090305/tc_nf/65095


Ken