Beware of Facebook virus

Your friend sends a video starring you through a private message on Facebook, however, you know you have never made a video with him. What do you do? Since the beginning of December, the Koobface worm has been plaguing the Facebook social networking site by using this method. The McAfee Avert Labs found the worm on December 5. This new discovery is a resurgence of Koobface, which was reported by Kaspersky Labs back in July. Kaspersky says that this worm is part of a malicious payload that transforms infected machines into zombie computers that create numerous botnets that cause spamming on the network.

The Koobface worm uses Facebook’s private messaging system to spread itself across the site. Potential victims receive a message from an infected profile. The message contains a video link that contains the title, “You look just awesome in this new movie.” When you open the message, there is a link that takes users to another website that prompts you to install an update to watch the video. This download contains the virus and when installed, will infect your profile and begin to send messages to your friends to infect theirs as well. This virus has been known to steal your credit card numbers. It will also alter your search results and lead you to fraudulent websites.

Experts say that the worm is just one example of the different types of large-scale viruses that attacked the Internet in the last decade. Such large-scale attacks are still rising and social networks are an obvious target for such attacks because they receive messages that they believe to be from “friends”.

Facebook says that it is deleting content created by the worm, and officials say that the networking site has “contained” the worm. Updates are being made to the Facebook Security Page, and it is publishing the best practices to help users avoid these attacks.

Preventing the Koobface worm from infecting your computer can be prevented. Since this worm is spread through a link attached to a private message, the best way to prevent from being infected is to not open the link. However, before totally disregarding the message and deleting it, you can send a message to your friend to query them to find out if they actually sent the message. If you found that your friend did not send the message, you can almost bet that this is the Koobface worm. By asking your friend, you are not only preventing your own profile and computer from being infected, but you are also warning your friend that their profile has been infected by the worm.

If you find that your computer has the worm, you should change your Facebook password and change all suspicious e-mails. You can help protect your computer by updating your McAfee or Norton antivirus software and running the virus scan.