Koobface Virus Corrupts Facebook, America's Youth Devastated

For a while now, it’s seemed like the filth was contained to MySpace and that Facebook could continue skipping merrily down its wholesome, rainbowed path of social networking glee. Now, however, a new virus called the Koobface, is kicking false Facebook confidence to the curb.

The LA Times reports:

Reports circulated today about a virulent piece of malware making its way around Facebook, a major hub of the social Web with 120 million users. Because of its walled-off internal e-mail system, Facebook has long been a tough target for spammers and other fraudsters, but the "Koobface" virus is a sign that the relative viral calm on the site -- which just today announced an ambitious program to extend its services outside its own tight perimeter -- may have been a luxury.

The virus' most insidious property is that users receive the offending message from a friend: On Facebook, only people whom users have explicitly approved as friends can send them e-mails.

The Koobface e-mails have a subject like "You look so amazing funny on our new video," and contain a link to a YouTube-like video site that appears to contain a movie clip (see image). The video, however, doesn't play, and the website then asks the user to update his or her video software by downloading a file. It's that file that contains the malicious code.

So yes, indeed, innocence has been shattered for all the naïve young Facebook cherubs. On the upside, Zucker-nerd probably doesn’t socialize too much outside of the internet, so he’ll probably hop on destroying Koobface, like a Dungeons and Dragons villain.