Claims: Messages appearing to come from Facebook friends and directing recipients to view YouTube videos harbor a virus.
Examples:
[Collected via e-mail, March 2010]
ATTENTION ALL: IF YOU GET A REQUEST FROM ME OR ANY FRIEND TO CHECKOUT
'YOUTUBE' AND IT LOOKS LIKE FACEBOOK, DO NOT OPEN IT. IT IS A TROJAN WORM
AND WILL INFECT AND SHUTDOWN YOUR COMPUTER AND TAKE ALL YOUR PERSONAL
INFO. IT IS TRAVELING AROUND FACEBOOK RAPIDLY. YOUR FRIENDS DID NOT SEND
IT! THIS IS REAL. PLEASE COPY AND PASTE
[Collected via e-mail, April 2010]
THERE IS A VIRUS SPEADING LIKE WILDFIRE ON FB. DO NOT ACCEPT
ANYTHING FROM ANY OF YOUR FRIENDS THAT ASK YOU TO WATCH A VIDEO ON
YOUTUBE. SNOPES JUST CONFIRMED. IT IS A TROJAN WORM VIRUS CALLED
KOOBFACE. IT WILL STEAL INFO, INFEST YOUR SYSTEM AND SHUT IT DOWN. DO NOT
OPEN THE LINK. PLEASE REPOST THIS IN YOUR STATUS
[Collected via e-mail, April 2010]
A VIRUS SPEADING LIKE WILDFIRE ON FB. DO NOT ACCEPT ANYTHING FROM
ANY OF YOUR FRIENDS THAT ASK YOU TO WATCH A VIDEO ON YOUTUBE "OBAMA".
CONFIRMED by Snopes, Kapersky, Symantec, and others. IT IS A TROJAN WORM
VIRUS CALLED KOOBFACE.
Origins: One method by which the Koobface virus spreads is via e-mails and posts that appear to be messages sent by friends or contacts from social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. The messages typically include invitations to view video clips; when the recipients click on the provided links, they are taken to a counterfeit YouTube web site and informed that they need to install an Adobe Flash plug-in to view the video. The faux plug-in installation procedure is a ruse to cover the loading of Koobface's trojan horse program on the user's computer
See our Koobface page for additional information on this virus.
