Koobface on Facebook

December 2008

Destructive Koobface virus turns up on Facebook. Facebook’s 120 million users are being targeted by a virus dubbed “Koobface” that uses the social network’s messaging system to infect PCs, and then tries to gather sensitive information such as credit card numbers. It is the latest attack by hackers increasingly looking to prey on users of social networking sites. Koobface spreads by sending notes to friends of someone whose PC has been infected. The messages, with subject headers like, “You look just awesome in this new movie,” direct recipients to a website where they are asked to download what it claims is an update of Adobe Systems Inc.’s Flash player. If they download the software, users end up with an infected computer, which then takes users to contaminated sites when they try to use search engines from Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Live.com, according McAfee. McAfee warned in a blog entry on Wednesday that its researchers had discovered that Koobface was making the rounds on Facebook. Privately held Facebook has told members to delete contaminated e-mails and has posted directions at www.facebook.com/security on how to clean infected computers.