Koobface Malware Still Posing Huge Security Issues

The nasty Koobface worm is back with a bang and is affecting Facebook users severely, by sending messages to friends of infected users that trick them into visiting links apparently offering video-clips, followed by prompting them to download new version of Adobe Flash player, which reportedly carries the malware content. 

Once the malicious codes execute on a new Windows PC, the user gets infected, and worm’s lifecycle then kicks-off afresh, all set to target new victims added on the user’s profile. 

First seen in late July this year, the new variant of the worm is programmed to seize control over users’ search queries, and direct them to visit fake websites, enabling hackers to carry out click fraud and related ad hijacking. 

The worm is turning out to be a cause of concern for a number of security researchers, due to the mysterious nature of the bug, which makes it difficult to spot the malicious link out of a large number of links present on the social networking website. 

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Craig Schmugar, a key researcher at McAfee Inc., was one of the first to identify and inform Facebook about the virus, said that though the increase in propagation of the worm hasn’t been observed, cleanup task is really challenging for Facebook.