That new Facebook message from your friend may actually be ‘Koobface,’ the latest malicious virus that allows other people to gain access to your computer. The virus, which asks users toclick on a video link, has been targeting users on the social networking website for months, and seems to be getting even more harmful.
Users are tricked by the virus, as it sends them an alleged message from one of their Facebook friends. If the user clicks on the message, a page with a photo of their friend appears. They are then asked to download a player to watch the video, which is when the virus begins to download onto their computer. The virus has attracted users recently by having a video that looks convincingly like a genuine YouTube page, including what appears to be comments from other users.
Once ‘Koobface’ successfully downloads onto a computer, it searches for log-in information from other social-networking websites, including MySpace, Friendster, LiveJournal, Bebo and Tagged. The virus then continues its cycle by sending itself to the original user’s friends on these other websites. However, Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace’s chief security officer, told USA Today that his site’s users are virtually immune to the virus. “We have put in a lot of features in our site cleansing things like ‘Koobface.’”
To keep its image intact, Facebook is currently revamping its home page so that users can more easily choose the types of information they see. In an effort to keep with the popular new social networking website Twitter, Facebook announced that it will let users follow public figures, bands and even institutions like The New York Times.
Facebook will launch this newly-designed homepage, which will include such new features as receiving continuous updates from friends, next Wednesday. Users will also be allowed to add filters, so that they can choose which of their friends they will receive these updates from, and which to “silence.” (Currently, people can choose to receive less information about their friends, but can’t completely silence them.) With the new changes, users will also be given the option to only see photos or videos of their friends.
The biggest change will possibly be to Facebook’s central feature, the status update. Now, users answer the question “What are you doing right now?,” but that will change to “What’s on your mind?” to allow for more insightful answers. But in an effort to avoid complaints, which have notoriously followed past Facebook changes, the website posted a preview of the changes earlier in the week and encouraged users to provide feedback.
Facebook seems to be exploiting its users by using the “Koobface” virus to its advantage. The website is saying it’s changing some of its features to fight against the virus, but it seems more likely it’s only using it as an excuse to change its features yet again. With all of the recent bad publicity surrounding the change of its user policy, it’s hard to understand why such a popular website would want to anger its users by changing its features yet again. Maybe if it receives enough negative feedback from its users, Facebook will think twice about changing its features in the future.
Even though facebook tries to secure from viruses. these viruses also may be updated. so why can't you help them from viruses. try to be an ethical computer security professional and catch the people, who are updating these viruses and be a best trusted security professional and help Cyber security professionals from these attacks.
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thankyou,
sankar
Nice post....
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