The Koobface Worm Attacks Facebook

The Koobface Worm that plagued MySpace users now comes in a new form and is targeting Facebook users.

The security provider Kaspersky Lab discovered the Net-Worm. Win 32. Koobface.b virus in July. They said is targeting unsuspecting Facebook users by disguising as messages sent by friends.

Alexander Gostev, a senior virus analyst at Kaspersky Lab said that, “Unfortunately, users are very trusting of messages left by ‘friends’ on social networking sites. So, the likelihood of a user clicking on a link like this is very high.”

Another security provider, McAfee Avert Labs said that once the users click on the link, they are redirected to several compromised hosts which will then push users to download or open a file called flah_player.exe.

Craig Schmugar from the McAfee Avert Labs wrote this on their blog:

“Facebook is already aware of this threat and is purging the spammed links from their system. But with dozens of Koobface variants known to exist, the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better. It’s important to note that spammed links leading to Koobface are likely to come from infected friends, reminiscent of early mass-mailing worms.”

Facebook is confident that the Koobface worm brings only minimal security threat. The company stated that, “Only a very small percentage of Facebook users have been affected, and we’re working quickly to update our security systems to minimize any further impact, including resetting passwords on infected accounts, removing the spam messages, and coordinating with third parties to remove redirects to malicious content elsewhere on the Web. Users with up-to-date antivirus software are generally well protected from this and similar viruses.”

It is better to take precaution so for Facebook users, think twice before you click on the link your friends send you.