Facebook hit by another adware bug

Rudolph Muller

Rudolph Muller is the editor at MyBroadband and covers telecoms and broadband news. Rudolph comes from an academic background, but left the University of...

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Hundreds of thousands of Facebook users are thought to have been hit by the attack, which posted a fake video to profiles entitled “distracting beach babes”.

The malicious posts, which were made to appear as if they were coming from users’ friends on Facebook, read:

<name>, this is hilarious! lol :P :P :P

Distracting Beach Babes [HQ] Length: 5:32

Accompanying the messages was a movie thumbnail of a woman in a bikini. However, Sophos experts warn that clicking on the movie’s thumbnail doesn’t play a video, but takes victims to a rogue Facebook application that informs users that they do not have the right player software installed, and tries to trick them into installing revenue-generating adware.

The rogue Facebook application then posts the same message to users’ Facebook friends, spreading the video link across the social network. Sophos estimates that hundreds of thousands of Facebook users found themselves under attack this weekend, echoing a similar scam that spread on Facebook last weekend involving the sharing of a fake video entitled “sexiest video ever”.

Brett Myroff, CEO of Sophos South Africa suggests, “An early warning system on its network could inform Facebook’s almost 500 million users about breaking threats as they happen. A simple message appearing on all users’ screens warning them of the outbreak would have helped in halting the attack.”

Sophos notes that Facebook has created a group dedicated to security issues with over 1.8 million fans. However, at the time of writing, no specific warnings have been posted on the group about either the “sexiest video ever” or “distracting beach babes” attacks.

“Unless something is done, another widespread attack this coming weekend won’t be surprising, which could affect thousands more users. Facebook needs to try and prevent these attacks, and better co-ordinate its response when an outbreak occurs,” says Myroff.

Facebook users hit by the attack are advised not to click on the links or allow the Facebook application to run.

Sophos advises affected users to scan their computer with up-to-date anti-virus software, change their passwords, and review their Facebook application settings and remove any Facebook applications installed during the attack