Facebook Virus Typifies Modern Attacks

By Laura Yecies

Is the current virus making the rounds on Facebook potentially devastating? Yes. Is it surprising? No.

Is it Facebook’s fault? No.

As I’ve said before, social engineering tactics are quickly becoming the attack-of-choice for hackers. There’s a simple reason – between security advances in the OS, more awareness of the critical nature of patches, and the evolution of security software (both in sophistication and user adoption), the most viable intrusion method is good old fashioned trickery.

According to the Telegraph…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/3568900/Koobface-virus-targets-Facebook-members.html
“The virus spreads by sending enticing messages to Facebook friends with subject headers such as "Look you were filmed all naked!" or "You look just awesome in this movie".
If the recipient clicks on the supplied link, he is taken to a page that looks like the video-sharing website YouTube.
He is then told that he needs to download new software, supposedly the latest version of Adobe Systems Inc's Flash player, in order to watch the film clip.
The downloaded file contains the virus, which will then infect the computer and take users to contaminated sites when they try to use Google, Yahoo or other search engines.”
There are three main things you can do to drastically reduce your chances of being a victim, and allow you to enjoy all the fun of social networks like Facebook:

1. If a friend sends you anything to download, simply ask them first before actually opening it. This goes for e-mail, social networks or IM. BE SUSPICIOUS.
2. Keep your PC patched. This goes a long, long way, because most hacks take advantage of vulnerabilities in your operating system or browser.
3. Use and update security software, including: browser security with virtualization and download protection, a firewall, and anti-virus/anti-spyware.

Comments

[Rob Peacock]

As a parent, I use K9 Web Protection ( Free )
www.k9webprotection.com/ and disable all proxy accesses. Not 100% full proof, but they would need to build a boot disk to bypass it.

[Jim]

The problem with parents trying to block where there kids go is the simple fact that we all use sites like Http://www.WhosYourproxy.com where you have hundreds of free proxies that are always being updated so you can always get around it.