The notorious Koobface worm is back with a vengeance.
Facebook users have been advised to be on high alert after it emerged that the computer invading Koobface worm had resurfaced.
Having previously targeted users of Bebo, MySpace and other social networking sites earlier in the year, once ‘in the loop’ the virus-type worm spreads like wild fire.
According to reports, the worm spams the Facebook friends of an infected user, inviting them to view a video entitled “secret video by Tom” with messages such as “you look just awesome in this new movie” and “How can anyone get so busted by a spy camera?”.
When the ‘friend’ tries to watch the video, a popup informs them that they need to update their Adobe Flash Player. If they agree to the download, the Koobface virus then takes hold of their computer and proceeds to send similar messages to all their Facebook friends too.
The version of the Koobface virus currently doing the rounds is programmed to identify traffic to Google, MSN, Yahoo and Live.com with the intention of hijacking the search results, sending them to bogus sites and conducting click fraud.
There are however several ‘strains’ of the virus and a representative of Symantec speaking to the BBC also warned that it may potentially search out sensitive information such as credit card details on infected user’s computers.
Facebook are already aware of the issue and are currently attempting to remove spam links from their systems.
In the meantime, security provider McAfee have urged users to be vigilant, to avoid opening any unexpected hyperlinks they receive via email and to install updates from the original source rather than through a third party.
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