Virus.Koobface

Virus.Koobface is a popular virus that is spread via social network sites, most notably through MySpace and Facebook. In fact, Virus.Koobface has become so synonymous with giant social networking site Facebook that is has become known as the ‘Facebook Koobface virus”. Virus.Koobface imbeds itself on its victim’s social network profile and displays malicious links to corrupt websites. This is done with the permission of the user, and can occur randomly and repeatedly.

Some of the messages imbedded onto users’ Facebook and MySpace accounts read as follows:

You look just awasome in this movie

Hey, I have this hilarious video of you dancing. Your face is so red. You should check it out

Hey, here is a cool vid

Notice the poor spelling and grammatical errors in the above text. This should already act as a warning to any other user who chooses to click on any of the links. If a user decides to click on any of the above links, he will instantly be redirected to a corrupt website that will install malware onto the system through drive-by download tactics. These sites could contain anything from Trojans to rogue security tools to extremely dangerous threats to any PC.

Virus.Koobface was first discovered 03 August 2008. It is also known as Net-Worm.Win32.Koobfaceb and W32/Koobface.worm. Other symptoms associated with the virus includes it stealing the confidential information of its victims, injecting advertising into web browsers, redirecting web browsing sessions to malicious sites, intercepting Internet traffic and blocking access to certain websites. It has also been reported that Virus.Koobface can start a web server to serve as a command and control server, and to receive further details and instructions from its developers, and to steal software license keys and determine of a link is blocked by Facebook. What is more, Virus.Koobface can also break CAPTCHAs and create new Blogspot accounts and pages using the user’s credentials and modify host files.

Now all of these symptoms, combined with the malicious nature and easy distribution methods employed by Virus.Koobface demands that the user take immediate action to protect his PC from this threat. If you suspect infection, make use of a powerful security tool to completely eradicate Virus.Koobface from your system and protect your PC against similar attacks in future.