Facebook Picture Chat Virus

There is a new virus out that can infect your computer from the chat function in your Facebook photo album. The virus uses a link in the photo chat function that downloads malicious software. The best advice is that if you come across an embedded link/picture/website that you can click in a picture, DON’T GO THERE! This is one of the latest in tricks that hackers are using social networks like Facebook to attack and get control of computers.

Here is more information:

http://isc.sans.edu/diary.html?storyid=10246

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/10/facebook_worm_photo_chat_scam/

Remember, almost all hacking done today is all about money-stealing yours or somebody elses. The way they do that is to keep your computer working and connected to the Internet. There are very few viruses today that damage your computer and make it unusable. Also, most viruses now come from the Internet and not from email. Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Myspace are also especially vulnerable to having attacks planted in them. And any web site can be infected (Yes, Google, Yahoo, Bing, anyone!), not just the “questionable” ones. When you are surfing the Internet you should pay attention to how your computer is acting-Does it suddenly slow down and stay slow? Does Internet Explorer (or whatever browser you use to surf) lock up/crash often? Do web pages you normally surf load slowly or not at all?

The best thing to do to protect yourself is to make sure all of your programs (anti-virus, operating system (Windows), browser (Internet Explorer), media players (Flash, Windows, Quicktime, iTunes), Adobe Reader, etc, etc, etc) are updated and that they are set to update automatically. This means you should not ignore the little yellow shield, the red shield with the big “X” or any other new or unusual icon that shows up in the lower right corner of your screen. Hackers look for ways to get into your computer 24/7/365+! When they find a weakness, they will exploit it. When software companies find out about these weaknesses they send updates to fix them. That is what those little yellow shields and other icons are all about. Do not ignore them!

I am not agaist using Facebook, Twitter, etc-they are fun and great new ways to communicate and express ourselves. Be wary if you see something new that isn’t announced or wasn’t there before.