Counterfeit E-mails Carrying Malware Hit Facebook Users

According to a researcher of University of Alabama (UAB), a new spam movement attacking Facebook users is on the rounds.

UAB at Birmingham Director of research in computer forensics, Gary Warner, claims that from the last three days (March 16-March 18, 2010) his team in the UAB Spam Data Mine has been detecting the spam campaign on Facebook, according to a statement published by msnbc on March 19, 2010.

Warner states that hackers are using phony e-mails to attack Facebook users and distribute computer viruses that were being found by just the one-third out of the 42 most widespread antivirus products.

The spam e-mail asks the users to click on an attachment to acquire the new Facebook login details. On clicking the attachment, the user's system will encounter the BredoLab malware.

The researcher also claims that since March 16, 2010, the UAB Spam Data Mine has come across almost eight variants of Facebook BredoLab malware.

The researcher further adds that once a system is infected with BredoLab malware, the hackers can insert other harmful software they wish to the compromised system, which includes counterfeit antivirus software, password-stealing software and spam-sending software, according to a statement published by main.uab.edu on March 18, 2010.

According to Warner, since May 2009, BredoLab has been now and again used in spam movements.

Warner cautions that an authentic firm like Facebook would never ask for a customer to update his private account details in an e-mail or through e-mail embedded attachments or links. In other words, it is a clear intimation to the user that this is a spam e-mail sent by cyber crooks.

Apart from Warner, security firm Sophos also informs about the malicious e-mail. Sophos identified the attached file with the e-mail as Troj/BredoZp-AD, and Troj/Bredo-BN was detected as the executable within the zip file, as per the blog post made by Prashant Kumar, a SophosLabs security expert, on Sophos.com on March 18, 2010.

Finally, in order to curb these kinds of spam e-mails and to prevent from such attacks, Facebook users should keep their security software updated, especially because Facebook is always at a risk from hackers.

Related article: Contract Killer Spam Scam

» SPAMfighter News - 3/29/2010