Try not to laugh xD: Worm spreads via Facebook status messages

A clickjacking worm spread quickly across Facebook earlier today, tricking users into posting it to their status updates.

The worm, which some have dubbed Fbhole because of the domain it points to, posts a message like the following:

try not to laugh xD http://www.fbhole.com/omg/allow.php?s=a&r=<random number>

Clicking on the link would display a fake error message that would trick you – through a clickjacking exploit – to invisibly push a button that would publish the same message to your own Facebook status update. We’ve seen clickjacking exploited by hackers before in attacks on social networks, for instance in the “Don’t click” attack seen on Twitter in early 2009.

The good news is that’s effectively it. Rather like the “Don’t click” Twitter attack, it appears that this latest Facebook security scare was more motivated out of mischief…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus 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 security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, on Mastodon at @[email protected], or drop him an email.