New social networking threats arrive

August 2009 Information Security

The arrival of what appears to be the first scareware distribution attack on the Twitter microblogging service at the end of May signals the fact that firms need to think very hard before allowing staff access to these advanced types of social networking applications.

According to Finjan, the scareware attack – in which Twitter users were invited to click on a ‘best video’ link but also ended up being quietly infected with a rogue security application – signals a worrying new trend in social Internet site attacks.

This Twitter scam was a complex one with users invited to click on what appears to be a YouTube video, but the embedded program call also opens an IP connection to a second site, resulting in the download of a malware-infected PDF file that later installs a rough anti-virus.

For more on the Twitter best video scam: http://www.viruslist.com/en/weblog?calendar=2009-06

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New social networking threats arrive

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