Tech Scrape

Koobface, a computer virus that aims computers thru social networking web sites, is obviously back and with added up sophistication.
A typical Koobface attack, same the one that came on on Twitter last month – comes thru a link that aims to be an interesting video i.e. – Person tweets video with a link to what appears like a YouTube page. Those videos then tell you that you need to upgrade your Flash player ->which, a lot legitimate videos frequently do too. Upon “upgrading,” however, the users are infected with the virus.

Recently Twitter has began cracking down on known malicious links, but at once, those intent on spreading the virus have added up a few twists that will build Koobface more challenging to protect against.

For starters, besides the same short URL coming on over and over again, which would be easily for Twitter to diffuse quickly, the virus is randomising the short link. Additionally, the links now come out to be directed to a well designed Facebook similar page. On top of that, the content directing people to the video is being randomised, making it a bit less obvious that its malicious.

Although this does indeed make it a bit trickier for Twitter to automatically blockade malicious links, for users, the safest advice is to check the actual URL in the address bar earlier catching a video after following a link. If it’s not facebook.com, youtube.com, or another popular video web site, odds are it is Koobface.

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