Facebook "Koobface" Worm Resurfaces

The Facebook "Koobface" worm, which gave users of the popular social networking site a very difficult time late last year, appears to have resurfaced on the Facebook website. The "Koobface" worm, already known to be one of the most harmful internet worms to surface in a while, tricks Facebook users into clicking out of the website through a call to action. For the most part, this is accomplished through a Facebook message, which in turn, is sent to most email inboxes, depending on the security settings of the account.

The worm tends to be extremely tricky to some Facebook users, generating an instant clickthrough to a website appearing similar to YouTube. YouTube is one of the most popular websites for online video today. In essence, the worm uses a "phishing" technique. The YouTube website appears to be a legitimate site, but it is a counterfeit. The user is then prompted to install a software plug-in-supposedly necessary for viewing the video that they are in.

If installed, the Facebook "Koobface" worm can do massive damage. Instead of the supposed plug-in that the user believes they are receiving, they receive a severe trojan horse program installed into their computer. The trojan horse that is installed is incredibly powerful, potentially allowing the creator of the trojan horse complete control over the original Facebook user's computer.

One of the things that Facebook does extremely well is promote interconnectedness. Facebook has implemented several means of communicating with friends, including messages, wall posts, photo tags, status updates, and others. The worm uses Facebook's capabilities to the absolute maximum. It can be safely assumed that once the trojan horse is installed on a user's computer, the worm can take ahold of the user's Facebook account. The "Koobface" worm uses this newly acquired capability to send out messages to friends, and this is where the worm is able to spread the fastest.

Smaller viruses and worms have been sent out through the message system, so Facebook users should be especially careful. Massive social networking sites such as MySpace (http://www.myspace.com) and Facebook are bound to get saturated with potential viruses and computer threats in the future. With all of the websites' successes, there is no reason to believe that these threats will stop anytime soon. As a Facebook user, you should be extremely careful in terms of what links you decide to click on. Similar to normal emails, viruses and worms are becoming more and more common.