Amid the whole Facebook privacy debacle clogging the tubes this week, online Web security solutions provider Websense is reporting about the continuous malware attacks dwelling within the social networking site.
While the average Facebook user is fully aware of the attacks that littered the social Web, some are only a tad bit prepared to recognize and face the traditional kinds of malicious activities. During the weekends of this month, such attacks played the Bait and Switch model where links have been posted on the target user’s wall that supposedly would direct them to enticing videos of the NSFW variety. These videos have tags like “Distracting Beach Babes” and “Sexiest Video Ever” and are even accompanied by marginally obscene thumbnails to appear legit.
According to the blog post, Websense’s research teams have picked up on a newer, slightly modified viral strain that has made apparent mere days ago. This time, the attacks have taken the humor route with the link declaring the footage in question to be the “Most Hilarious Video ever.”
Like the two phishing activities before it, clicking on the poisoned link/s will take you to a site that visually impersonates the all-too familiar Facebook login page with the matching page title to make it appear authentic. However, as deceiving as the page may seem, the difference lies on the address bar where it displays some bizarre URL instead of www.facebook.com.
Here, the cybercriminal attempts to trick you into typing in your login credentials where after you click on Login, and, depending on the country you’re connecting from, would display different pages.
For instance, if you’re logged in from a US IP address, it’ll go back to the Facebook domain and asks you to allow it to access your profile. After allowing it access, it will prompt you to download an FLV Player. For UK IP addresses, it’ll instead have a 10-item IQ quiz. What follows is a tempting enough chance to win an Apple iPad.
Instead of the usual way of cybercriminals baiting you to unwittingly download and run a malware program, this new strain tricks the user into sharing their login credentials and a handful of personal information.
“In our testing we only had the ability to test this attack from the US and UK but regardless of where you are connecting from you shouldn’t click on the fake video and never, ever give you Facebook username and password to a website that is not facebook.com.” the blog post stated.
Not really a shocker given the huge number of registered users logging on to Facebook on a daily basis. If this week’s rather shady privacy issues prove to be an indication of how your particularls can be inadvertently shared with anyone online, this latest malware activity offer larger, potentially more damaging results.
Nowadays, as bad as it may sound, it really pays to be a little untrusting sometimes especially when applications are attempting to gain access to their own personal profiles. Users have to be vigilant whenever they’re on any kind of social networking site and keep an eye out for those misleading links, most of all.
In addition, the good folks at Websense have also provided a free security app they specifically developed for Facebook, a security solution called Defensio.
In his previous incarnations, Luis Oliveros served as a gadget & software reviewer, a tech magazine editor, a graphic artist and a tour guide. When not swamped by his writing duties, he spends his time reading comic books, listening to podcasts and repeatedly hitting the Snooze button.
Tags: Facebook, Malware, News, Phishing, Security, Social Media, social networking, Web, Websense
