Facebook Virus
Facebook Virus
120 Million users’ credit card numbers may be at risk as a mallicious virus infects Facebook users’ computers.
‘Koobface’ - as it has been nicknamed, spreads by sending a message, pretending to be from a facebook friend, to people’s facebook.com inbox.
It says something like: “you look funny in this new video” or “you look just awesome in this new video”. When a user clicks on the video link provided they’re then asked to watch a “secret video by Tom”.
When users try and play the malicious video they’re asked to download the latest version of Adobe Flash Player. If they do, that’s when the virus takes hold and attacks the computer.
Guy Bunker works for Symantec, who make Norton AntiVirus, and says there are two ways Koobface gets people’s credit card details.
“It can either wait for you to make an online purchase & simply remember the details you type in on your keyboard. Otherwise it can search your computer for any cookies you might have from when you’ve bought something in the past, and take your card details from there.”
This case is one of the latest cases of how fraudsters are using social networking to gather card numbers and sensitive information.
Some technology & computer experts will tell you that you should turn off cookies on your browser, however the problem with that is you will not benefit from the full features of some of the world’s best websites.
I am a website programmer and my advice to anyone is to simply clear your cookies after any transaction, but whilst generally browsing there’s really no need - just make sure that you regularly run virus scan program.
If you don’t have one, I recommend the use of Panda Security & Anti-Virus Tool.
