Word is out from Trend Micro that the Koobface botnet has started a new attack on Facebook, and also a second report about it using Google Reader to spam Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and possibly other social networking sites. This attack should be seen as part of the growing threat to social networking sites without the proper type of bot detection software. Below is the Trend Micro blog on the Facebook attack, but I would also advise checking out their blog post on the wider Google Reader attack as well. The Koobface botnet has pushed out a new component that ... more

The fight against Virtual Blight has two heroes this week, TechCrunch founder and editor Michael Arrington and Facebook advertising guru Dennis Yu, who set the spammy/scammy world of incentivized lead generation scams on fire. Arrington started the ball rolling with Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem of Hell, and Yu pushed the gas pedal to the floor with How To Spam Facebook Like A Pro: An Insider’s Confession. These two heroes in the fight against blight have pushed MySpace to publicly flagellate these scams and toughen up their TOC for applications and advertisers along with getting serious about enforcement. ... more

CNN ran an interesting story today on how social networking sites have been recently plagued with spam, phishing, and other online fraud. For those of us in the network security field, this is not exactly news — but stepping back a bit from such tunnel vision, we have to remember that it is indeed news to a lot of the users of such sites. So while the article itself is fairly basic and beginner-level when it comes to online security, what is interesting is that it is being presented to such a wide general-interest audience. So, for ... more

While this story is not exactly news to people who follow security trends online, the mainstream media certainly discovered it in the past few days. Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have been targets for such attacks of late, but a report just out seems to have focused attention on these attacks in a more widespread way than before. If you’re interested in the mainstream news’ version of the story, all you have to do is enter “social networking” into a search engine such as Google News to see the numerous stories on the phenomenon this ... more

MySpace’s chief security officer is quoted today in USA Today proudly saying: “Today we are declaring victory in the war on spam and phishing.” Later in the article, we find out that they are merely claiming to have reduced spam, from 49% to 99.5% (depending on the type). I’m not so sure that’s exactly “victory,” myself. I found Investors Business Daily a bit more believable on the subject, though. In an article which gives an overview of the scope of fraud, they write: More than 1.2 million people filed a complaint of fraud, identity theft or a ... more

Trend Labs is reporting on their blog that a new strain of the Koobface worm has been detected on Facebook. It directs the unsuspecting user to a fake YouTube page, where it directs you to download the latest Flash Player. But, of course, what gets downloaded instead is malware. Check out the full blog posting to see example screen shots, which show how sophisticated the sting is. From their post: Take a second look though, the link had taken me to a site supposedly hosting a video posted by the same person that I had received the ... more

OK, I have to admit, that headline just kind of wrote itself. But, while amusing, the facts behind the headline are not amusing in the least. An old worm attack has been born anew on the Facebook and MySpace sites, with devastating consequences. And that is nothing to joke about. From Wired magazine’s website: Attention new viewers: those 5000 “friends” you have on Facebook? They might not actually be your friends. In fact, some of them might be scammers trying to infect your computer with a new virus dubbed “Koobface”. Koobface, which already made the rounds on ... more

Google is just one many companies profiting from spreading blight. Pundits make a fairly convincing case that Google Adsense has been the single largest factor driving the creation of Splogs and MFA Webspam. Googles contribution to Virtual Blight goes beyond monetizing bad content for spammy webmasters. Google provides basic infrastructure and add legitimacy to the hordes of Parasitic Marketers who use deceptive and possibly illegal tactics to make money — while leaving a trail of decimated profiles, devalued web real estate and disgusted users. What’s among the biggest contributor to blight on MySpace? The leagues of sock ... more