Home Cybersecurity Koobfaced Santa Attacks Facebook

Koobfaced Santa Attacks Facebook

Posted: December 14, 2009

The infamous Koobface parasite wants to give you a gift this holiday season that is not-so friendly.

Cyber crooks are abusing Santa Claus with the Koobface worm to deliver a nasty surprise for unwary Facebook users this Christmas.

The infection drops other trojans such as FakeAlert leaving the computer user with other potential issues that may occur at a later date. The mayhem begins with a post on the Facebook user's Wall. When the user clicks on the link, a fake video player with a Christmas greeting will appear.

A fake message will state that if the user wants to view the video he/she must download the latest version of Adobe Flash. Once the user clicks on "install", instead of the flash player being downloaded, it runs a variant of W32/Koobface on the system. The user's browser will now be redirected to corrupt websites harboring malicious files which will be automatically installed and executed on the infected system. Soon a fake message will be displayed stating that the system has been infected with various viruses and that the user will have to buy a product (a rogue anti-virus program) to remove them.

Facebook users are urged to avoid installing anything that requires clicking on video links relating to Christmas.

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