Kaspersky Discovers New Koobface Variant, Ranks 25 Millionth Malware on its List

According to security company 'Kaspersky', its researchers detected a new Koobface variant on June 9, 2009 and included it into the antivirus databases of the company, designating it the 25 millionth malware program. There are more than 50 variants of Koobface.

The new Koobface variant dubbed Net-Worm.Win32.Koobface targets people visiting MySpace and Facebook, the most popular social networking websites. It also confirms what Kaspersky Lab earlier predicted that there would be an increasing number of IT threats targeting social-networking websites.

The worm spreads through a simple propagation method. Users of MySpace and Facebook receive a message apparently from a buddy which carries a web-link for a video file hosted on an unfamiliar website. However, when users try to run the video, a message appears asking them to download an updated version of Flash Player.

Rather than downloading an updated version of Flash Player, a Koobface virus gets installed on the user's system. This virus with backdoor features facilitates a remote server to send commands to the infected PC.

The dissemination of the Koobface group of worms validates the assumption that the number of malevolent software is increasing day by day, and they are employing ever more sophisticated technologies.

In 2008, Kaspersky's specialists predicted that social-networking websites would become lucrative targets for web scammers. Now there are evidences that the technologies employed in these novel attacks are progressively more complex.

Additionally, with each passing year, IT threats are growing at an exponential rate. Kaspersky Lab had also predicted that malicious programs would increase ten times from 2.2 Million during 2007 to 20 Million during 2008. But the percentage of rise that the cyber-crime sector demonstrates has exceeded these predictions far more.

A research conducted by Kaspersky Lab reveals that the success of infection by malicious programs on MySpace and Facebook is ten times greater than the success of infection by e-mail-based threats. Thus, to tackle the problem, companies and end-users need to follow good security practices.

In a similar news, Symantec too in its recent 'State of phishing Report' observes that there is a novel trend of phishers targeting the well-known social site Facebook.

Related article: Kaspersky Released Malware Statistics for September 2008

» SPAMfighter News - 6/19/2009