Social networking viruses
Today, someone “sent me” a link in Facebook for a cool video. Now, I was able to figure out that the link was a virus without getting nailed. For starters, the link had YuoTube intead of YouTube and the subtle graphics for the site were different. My address bar in internet explorer didn’t say www.youtube.com in it, either. Long story short, I put this virus in my sandbox, which is a machine meant for virus to ravage and then I reverse the damage with a quick restore of a backup. This virus was the Koobface virus (it’s facebook rearranged) and has two versions for you MySpace users and for you Facebook users. The payload of the virus allows the virus, within a minute, to modify your computer to stop search engines from sending you to legit links and to silently take you to pages you didn’t click on for ads and more spyware. It is pretty nasty to remove as you can’t go to Symantec, CA, Mcafee, and other virus vendor sites anymore because the virus can tell what you are up to. The virus will then take your facebook or myspace username and password and send out an email, in Facebook or Myspace, encouraging your friends and contacts to click a link to allow the Koobface virus to install on their machines.
Don’t be “that guy” and send viruses to your friends…. Here’s what you do to be safe:
1. Are you expecting an email from a friend in Facebook or MySpace? Does this person normally send you email or do they post on your page? Look at the grammer, look for spelling errors… Does the link they want you to click on go to a site you know and trust like google or youtube? If the link goes to a website with numbers in it, for example, http://127.0.0.1 it probably isn’t legit…. Think before you click a link from a friend as these viruses can raid address books.
2. Did you get infected because you didn’t read number 1 above? Well, change your facebook or myspace password right away. The virus doesn’t immeditaly send an email to your friends and family, which is great, but if it can’t login under your account anymore, you can head off the damage that the virus can bring to friends or business contacts. Did you have credit card numbers or financial website passwords saved? Change those passwords right away, too.
MT
