Facebook and MySpace malware

Our friends at Kaspersky reported at the end of last week the discovery of the so-called Koobface malware which accesses infected users’ Facebook and MySpace accounts.

A few people have been in touch asking if Sophos detects the malware. Well, I’m pleased to report that we detect the various malware elements proactively as Mal/Heuri-E, Mal/Heuri-D, Mal/Emogen-N and Mal/Packer.

The malware is written in Visual C++ version 6.0, and has been packed in an attempt to make analysis and detection more difficult for security researchers. The malware works by directing your ‘friends’ on the social-networking websites to click on a link to another site purporting to contain a video clip. If they are tricked into downloading an executable to ‘watch’ the video at the third party website, a message is displayed:

“Error installing Codec. Please Contact Support”

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, or drop him an email.