A malicious program that sprang up on Facebook.com in late July 2009,has surfaced again, this time using Google's Web sites to sneak around security filters.
Hackers initially unleashed Koobface in late July2009, but Facebook's security team soon slowed its spread by blocking the Web sites that were hosting the malicious Trojan software.
That has prompted the criminals to change tactics. In this latest attack they have hosted files that appear to be YouTube videos on Picasa and Google Reader and used Facebook to send them to victims.
The links appear safe because they go to Google.com Web sites, but once the victim arrives on the Google Reader or Picasa page, he is invited to click on a video or a Web link. The victim is then told he needs to download special code decompression software to view the video. That software is actually a malicious Trojan Horse program, which is blocked by most antivirus programs, according to Facebook.
Lovet believes the cyber-criminals behind Koobface have deliberately misspelled their Facebook messages to further help them evade detection by filters.
"Sommebody uupload a viideo witth you on utubee. you shuold ese," reads one message.
This latest attack use the self-copying worm code that Koobface used last August, but it could easily be added.
Facebook is working with Google to shut down the problem, said Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt.
Koobface has been a top security concern at Facebook since July.It's been out there constantly, but it's surfaced a little bit more lately.
The worm's creators have used other tricks to try to circumvent Facebook filters. They've used Facebook's instant messaging feature and also hosted their malicious links on sites such as Tinyurl.com and Bloglines.
Nobody knows how widespread this malware really is, but when Koobface first appeared on the scene, Facebook said it was affecting less than 0.02 percent of users. Facebook boasts more than 200 million users; 0.002 percent of that would represent 440,000 users.
Security experts have long warned that the Web 2.0 mash-up model of allowing users to put together their own content from many different sources naturally creates many security problems. In part, this is because it allows anyone to post material on trustworthy domains such as Google.com.
I believe that you will see more of this stuff happening,With corporate Intranets adopting new technologies such as blogging and Wikis, corporate targets may soon be ripe for attack.If you have a worm inside a corporation that works the same way as the worm on Facebook, you have a huge problem.
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