Facebook Error/Outage

You may already be aware of the Facebook worm that is spreading through Facebook for weeks now. As a result, Facebook are resetting some user passwords and scrubbing the service for the malicious links to eradicate the worm.

So if you are unable to use Facebook right now this is the most likely cause.

Heres what Craig Schmugar, a threat researcher at McAfee Inc. had to say on the matter:

"We're not seeing increases in propagation," he acknowledged today, but noted that cleanup was a tough chore for Facebook. "It's a bit of a cat-and-mouse game for them," he said. "There are certainly millions of links on Facebook. How do you know which are the bad ones, which are the good ones? That's not without problems."

Wednesday, Schmugar was one of the first security researchers to notice Koobface's spread and notify Facebook.

Earlier in the week, Facebook users began reporting receiving spam messages such as "You look just awesome in this new movie" or "You look so amazing funny on our new video" that tried to dupe them into clicking on a link. Schmugar said that if they did, they were taken to one of several compromised sites that then displayed a fake error message claiming that Adobe System Inc.'s Flash was out of date, and prompted them to download an update.

The "update" was nothing of the kind, but instead was an executable file that installed the Koobface worm, which in turn installed a background proxy server that redirected all Web traffic. According to Schmugar, the proxy servers listens on TCP port 9090, particularly for search requests to the major search engines, including Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's Live Search.

Today, Facebook said it was dealing with the worm. "We're working quickly to update our security systems to minimize any further impact, including resetting passwords on infected accounts, removing the spam messages and coordinating with third parties to remove redirects to malicious content elsewhere on the Web," said spokesman Barry Schnitt in an e-mail.

Users are advised not to click unfamiliar links and delete them straight away.

See the post: Facebook Virus for more

Internet Explorer Security Risk

Internet Explorer has seen some threats and bugs in the past, but IE 7 users are being urged by internet experts to switch to an alternative Web Browser for the moment. If successfully exploited, Internet Explorers vulnerability could give control of your computer to hackers. They would have the same control as the local user and leave your entire computer and the hard drive open to cyber criminals.

BBC reporter spoke to John Curran, head of Windows at Microsoft UK, this is what Microsoft said.

1. How serious is this?
   
   Mr Curran told me that only a tiny proportion of websites were infected, but given the sheer scale of today's web, that could affect a large number of people.
   So, he said, "it is certainly something people should take seriously."
   
   2. So what should IE users do?
   
   Microsoft is working on a patch but in the meantime Mr Curran said there were four steps to take.
   - make sure anti-virus software is up to date.
   - run Internet Explorer 7 or 8 in "protected mode".
   - set Internet Explorer zone security setting to "High"
   - Windows users should enable Automatic Updates so that they get any patch that is issued.
   
   But of course doing all of that is not only time-consuming, it will make your web browsing experience slower and less rewarding. Which brings us to the final question.
   
   3. Shouldn't you switch to another browser until the patch come out?
   
   This has been the advice of a number of security firms - who of course are also touting their latest anti-virus products - but you won't be surprised to hear that Mr Curran disagrees. He told me he had recently seen a report which listed another browser as having the highest number of vulnerabilities. "it would not be advisable," he said,"to send people from one vulnerability (in Internet Explorer) to multiple vulnerabilities."

Of course Microsoft don’t want to lose customers but the risk o this threat is high, so be strongly advised to switch to Firefox or an alternative and protect your computer with Antivirus.

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Facebook Virus - It Alright If I Upload This Picture of Us to Facebook

It is a virus/ worm that spreads through a Facebook profile or Friendlist in msn messenger, you first get a message which looks like this: "it alright if i upload this picture of us to Facebook", then the person will send a file request with a random name. The file could be combined together with some sort of keylogger that spys through what you type/ and do on your computer. So, it could be extremely dangerous since the creator could see all your important password, such as your online banking password.

How does it spread?

There are 2 ways for "it alright if i upload this picture of us to Facebook" to spread.

1. Through MSN messenger: Once a person has accepted the file with the random file name (as mentioned above), the virus would be spreading to all the friends on the friendlist automatically everytime you log into your account. So don't blame your friend who sent you the virus, they are victims!
2. Through Facebook: This virus could be spread though Facebook too. It would be a message with a random URL, the URL takes you to a fake site (like youtube) and ask you to download a file. Once you've downloaded and installed, you would spread it through Facebook/ MSN messenger.

Best way to avoid it:

Do not open ANYTHING before making sure that it's sent directly by your friend. You can always check by replying a simple message like, "Hey, what is this?".

How to remove and get rid of this virus?

As I have mentioned, this virus can do more than what you think.

The best way to remove this virus is to install Netcom3 spyware remover as soon as possible. This will remove your virus (If you've already got infected) and also keep your computer spyware free in the future.

Related post: http://spywareclinic.blogspot.com/2008/12/facebook-virus.html

Facebook Virus

Over the past few months there has been a virus(s) going around Facebook. The Facebook virus itself has morphed and is becoming more difficult to identify and remove from your computer. AVG dosnt seem to pick up on the virus nor do some other anti virus packages.

One such instance of the Facebook virus is a message appearing like this:

"Subject: Hey friend. "You've been catched on hidden cam, yo."

Or something similar.



There is a link accompanying the message and if clicked will takes you to what appears to be a YouTube video. This is not YouTube. When you click the video to begin, a message pops up and says you first need to download a newer Flash player to play the video. Do not do this. It's a virus.


The main affect of the Facebook virus is to change your Proxy settings in your web browser. If you suspect that this is the case then you may have to change your proxy settings in firefox/IE after removing it - the proxy settings will still be set to ues the little tinyproxy and after it's gone will not be able to connect until you reset them.

In Firefox: Tools Menu -> Options... -> Advanced Tab -> Network Tab -> "Settings" button under Connection.

In IE7: Tools Menu -> Internet Options -> Connections Tab -> "Lan Settings" button -> Uncheck "use a proxy server"

In IE6: Same as IE7.



If you suspect that a message you received is not from a friend and is in fact the Facebook virus, DONT CLICK ANY LINKS ATTACHED.

Be sure you have the right antivirus software to deal with it and keep it updated.