With the dawn of online social networking, came cyber hackers trying exploit the market. Currently, some of the beastliest of the beastly hackers have in their sights the 400-million-plus users of Facebook. Their weapon of choice: a malicious, quick-eating worm, dubbed Koobface.
The Koobface virus is spread through messages sent from Facebook users - your friends - who have infected computers. The messages arrive in your inbox with titles like, “you look just awesome in this new video,” or “your mom would cry if she saw this,” and “your butt looks not bad in this video…” The point is to entice you into taking a look. Then, after you click the link, you’re taken to a counterfeit YouTube site, where you’re told to install an Adobe flash plug-in. The faux plug-in installation is really a disguise to cover the loading of the vicious Koobface onto your computer.
Once a computer is infected, not only does the worm grab sensitive information, such as passwords and banking info, but it also puts a total shut-down on whichever of the three internet browsers - Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Google Chrome - you operate.
Patrick Wells, a tech desk support worker at Greenwich Technologies in Grosse Pointe, said he saw two of these contaminated computers in just one week, and, he warned, curing a Koobface-infected computer is no small feat.
“Since the computers could not open any web browsers, I had to manually download all the necessary programs from another computer. Then, I had to copy them to a USB flash drive, and then copy them onto the infected computers,” Wells said. He said he can’t even remember how many separate programs he had to use to nurse the computers back to health.
Facebook is aware of this potentially-monumental problem, and, they say they’re working on it.
Barry Schnitt, a spokesman for Facebook, announced in a mass email that "only a very small percentage of Facebook users have been affected,” and that they’re working hastily to update their security systems to “minimize any further impact."
Unfortunately, “a very small percentage,” when Facebook is the pool from which you’re pulling, could still mean tens of millions of people - and you might be one of them. So, rather than sitting around, waiting for Facebook to eliminate this global threat, Patrick Wells suggests avoiding the problem altogether.
As with anything else, Wells said, a little common sense can go a long way. Don’t follow links that seem fishy to you. Don’t watch a video in which you know you cannot possibly be. Let a friend know, if he or she is sending out messages that you suspect to be lures.
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