PandaLabs Warns Users of YouTube’s Malicious Lookalike

PandaLabs security experts are alerting Web surfers to avoid a web site which attempts to pass itself off acting as the video sharing website YouTube. According to PandaLabs, "Just a Tube", this malicious web site very much looks like YouTube, but it actually installs Trojan horse malware onto visitors' computers. This website must be avoided at any expense.

However, here the case is not like the actual YouTube. To watch the video, a user must have an update of a codec. In case the code is downloaded by the user, he/she has actually installed a Trojan on their system, detected as Zlob.OB.

As stated by the researchers at PandaLabs, to watch a video on YouTube no such code is required by the user. However, the website could ask the user for browser update, as per the news published by Webuser on April 12, 2010.

To add to, in a blog posting, PandaLabs said that in the past also websites with malicious motives have attempted to pass themselves off as YouTube. F-Secure, a security vendor, in November 2007, reported an incident wherein a phishing ploy aimed to entice users to visit a malicious imitation of YouTube to infect their system with Trojan-Dropper.W32/Agent.CPL. Spam e-mails were sent to the Internet users. The e-mail asked them to click-open an embedded YouTube clip.

The security experts commented that on a general note, cyber crooks employ Black hat SEO techniques to secure good rankings in search engines. Coupled with a fairly believable spoof a legitimate website, a good positioning can easily make some unwary users access them unwittingly, believing that a legitimate website is being accessed.

Therefore, the Web users must be suspicious of such scams. The security researchers at PandaLabs suggest users to be attentive to the URL that is displayed in the address bar. If the URL differs from the usual one, then surely users are accessing a bogus website. The actual URL in YouTube's case is www.youtube.com.

Additionally, Internet users must ensure that their system is equipped with a decent and updated antivirus solution while browsing through the Web.

Related article: PandaLabs Report Discusses Movie Trojan and Other Worms

» SPAMfighter News - 4/23/2010