Facebook worm hijacks web search

A new variant of the Koobface worm has returned to menace users of Facebook.

A new kind of virus has been found on social networking site Facebook. As per latest news this virus sends messages to friends on the social networking site which contains links to some videos. Once the link is clicked it asks the users to download a Adobe Flash players files from a certain site which contain the worm's payload.

Once the code is executed the Windows PC gets infected. Once the worm completes attacking one user it then moves on to the friends list of infected users. This malware was first spotted in July and since than has taken nasty steps and has been flared up again since last week.

The latest variant of the malware typically comes in a less salacious package. The first wave of infections came with messages such as "Paris Hilton Tosses Dwarf on the Street" whereas the latest variant is more likely to pose as "secret video by Tom" or some such. The latest Koobface variant is programmed to hijack search queries and divert infected users to bogus sites, benefiting crooks through related ad hijacking and click fraud in the process.

Facebook's advice for dealing with the worm can be found here. The social networking utility is in the process of purging spammed links to the malware from its systems, reports McAfee, which has a full write-up of the threat here. Though various antivirus software have been used to quarantine the virus but the effort has been unsuccessful because of the nature of its code.