Facebook Virus an Old Trick on A New Platform
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) -- Who you know on Facebook could put your credit card numbers and other sensitive information at risk, thanks to a virus now propagating on the popular social networking site.
Once the virus, called Koobface, infects a personal computer, it then tries to spread itself by sending messages with infected attachments through Facebook.
KCBS technology analyst Larry Magid compared the Koobface strategy for survival to the e-mail attachment scams so common a decade ago.
The infected person’s Facebook friends receive messages with a subject line that reads, “You look just awesome in this new movie.”
As the message directs the recipient to a Website where the movie can be downloaded, a pop-up flashes on the sceen indicating that Adobe System Flash Player must first be updated. If the user agrees to the phony update, a copy of Koobface is downloaded and installed onto their PC.
The easiest way to protect against the virus is to avoid opening unexpected e-mail attachments even when they seem to come from someone you know.
Facebook has posted instructions about how to remove the virus on its security page.
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