a GENUINE warning.

[Spitfire]

I subscribe to a weekly newsletter from V3.co.uk and can guarantee that the following is NOT a hoax.
It may be boring to keep reading of these hacking attempts, but if it saves one persons details from being stolen - then it`s well worth it.


The hackers behind the infamous Koobface worm have launched a new campaign that seeks to trick users by employing a Christmas theme.

Koobface was first detected around a year ago, spreading primarily through social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, and stealing user credentials and other sensitive information such as credit card details.

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Users are generally more trusting of messages coming from their friends or contacts on these sites, so Koobface's strategy - compromising accounts then sending out messages containing malicious links to their "friends" - was highly successful.

Now, new alerts from security vendors Websense and Symantec are warning users that the new message "I caan't ffall asleepp affter viewwing thiss videeo. I haven'tt seenn aanything liike this" is Koobface.

The accompanying link will take users to a fake Facebook page or a fake YouTube video page where they will be encourage to install and run a setup.exe file presented as free antivirus to protect the user from Koobface, or a Flash upgrade to watch a video posted by SantA.

"This file is currently detected by 16 out of 41 antivirus products according to VirusTotal," noted a Websense security alert. "If the user runs the infected file, the worm will automatically login to their Facebook, MySpace, and several other social networking sites and send messages to all their friends."

[LDunlop76]

It's been around for a while, according to this:
.Facebook Virus
Friday December 5, 2008
This is to confirm that some email alerts currently going around warning of malware attacks on Facebook members via the network's internal message service are true. The attacks are particularly insidious because the potentially destructive messages appear to come from friends.

The culprit is an Internet worm known as Koobface (get it?). The main thing you need to know to protect yourself is this: The worm is unleashed by clicking on a link in a Facebook message -- usually something on the order of "You look funny in this new video," "My friend catched you on hidden cam," or "Secret Video by Tom," etc. -- which causes a fake dialogue box to appear instructing the user to download the latest version of Flash Player. If the user complies, a Trojan horse is downloaded to their computer.

Don't click on questionable-seeming links.

Facebook advises members who believe they've inadvertently downloaded the malware to run a virus scan and reset their passwords.

http://urbanlegends.about.com/b/2008/12/05/yes-virginia-there-is-a-facebook-virus.htm

[anacortesdamp]

I guess this is a warning agianst using "Social Interaction" websites. I've never felt any need to subscribe to Facebook, Twitter or MySpace, so with a bit of luck, we're immune!


Frank

[LDunlop76]

I use Facebook as it's an easy way of sharing photos etc with family abroad. But care needs to be exercised.

[DavidBatty]

Facebook is no more dangerous than using this social interaction website, whether someone gets a virus or not depends on their actions and willingness to click on links without looking at the context of the link and doing a quick mental assessment of the validity of the link.