By Jim
Finkle
BOSTON (Reuters) -
Facebook's 120 million users are being targeted by a virus dubbed
"Koobface" that uses the social network's messaging system to
infect PCs, 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.
"A few other viruses have tried to use Facebook in similar ways
to propagate themselves," Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said in
an e-mail. He said a "very small percentage of users" had been
affected by these viruses.
"It is on the rise, relative to other threats like e-mails,"
said Craig Schmugar, a researcher with McAfee Inc.
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.
Facebook requires senders of messages within the network to be
members and hides user data from people who do not have accounts,
said Chris Boyd, a researcher with FaceTime Security Labs. Because
of that, users tend to be far less suspicious of messages they
receive in the network.
"People tend to let their guard down. They think you've got to
log in with an account, so there is no way that worms and other
viruses could infect them," Boyd said.
Social network MySpace, owned by News Corp, was hit by a version
of Koobface in August and used security technology to eradicate it,
according to a company spokeswoman. The virus has not cropped up
since then, she said.
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.
Richard Larmer, chief executive of RLM Public Relations in New
York, said he threw out his PC after it became infected by
Koobface, which downloaded malicious software onto his PC. It was
really bad. It destroyed my computer," he said.
McAfee has not yet identified the perpetrators behind Koobface,
who are improving the malicious software behind the virus in a bid
to outsmart security at Facebook and MySpace.
"The people behind it are updating it, refining it, adding new
functionalities," said McAfee's Schmugar.
(Reporting by Jim Finkle, Additional reporting by Emily Kaiser;
Editing by Toni Reinhold)