New Facebook virus

In Your Facebook: Virus Anything But Friendly

by Claudine Zap

December 5, 2008 11:22:43 AM

It's all fun and friendship until someone gets an infection.

In this case, the someone may be your Facebook friend. There's a nasty virus spreading faster than you can update your Facebook status.

Dubbed Koobface, the virus preys on the social network's messaging system to entice the unsuspecting to download a video from their "friend " with the tempting message, "You look just awesome in this new movie." All you have to do is update your Flash player and you're good to go with your cool, new vid. Sounds great, right? Wrong! The social call is actually a social disease, and before you know it, when you think you've got mail you've actually got a virus. The insidious worm will go grab all the private data on your computer, like credit card info. Is nothing sacred?

The uninvited friend already made its destructive appearance on rival networking site MySpace. But Facebook is serious fresh meat. With 120 million users, it's a nightmare that's been waiting to happen.

According to Facebook, the virus has hit only a very small percentage of users. But, like the growing popularity of social networking, it's on the rise.

With friends like this, who needs enemies?