PSA: Bin Laden Malware Threat

'Tis the season to be infected...

Bin Laden-related malware grows on social networks

By Suzanne Choney

With interest still very high in news of Osama bin Laden's death, malware and spam are having a field day on social networks like Facebook and Twitter, say Web and software security companies. And the FBI Tuesday issued a warning to computer users to "exercise caution" when they receive emails that "purport to show photos or videos" of bin Laden's killing, with links in those emails leading to havoc for some users' machines.

Cybercriminals, looking to get your personal information by having you click on a link, or spammers trying to get you to buy rogue anti-virus software the same way, are also "liking" Facebook -- and Twitter -- a lot in recent days to "spread malicious links claiming to be images of bin Laden's death," says Kaspersky Lab.

Behind the success is how quickly such links can be disseminated, "the implied trust of social network contacts" and the "prevalence of shortened URLs," the company says.

"We were especially concerned about the potential distribution of malware on social networks, because of their speed of propagation," says Kaspersky Lab expert Vicente Diaz on a company blog. " So we have been monitoring Twitter, getting some million tweets and a huge number of URLs too. No surprise here as during the last 24 hours the average was 4,000 tweets per second related to this topic.

Kaspersky found a Facebook "scam campaign posing as Osama's death video" (see below).

The complaint center has these recommendations for computer users:

• Adjust the privacy settings on social networking sites you frequent to make it more difficult for people you know and do not know to post content to your page. Even a "friend" can unknowingly pass on multimedia that's actually malicious software.
• Do not agree to download software to view videos. These applications can infect your computer.
• Read e-mails you receive carefully. Fraudulent messages often feature misspellings, poor grammar, and nonstandard English.
• Report e-mails you receive that purport to be from the FBI. Criminals often use the FBI's name and seal to add legitimacy to their fraudulent schemes. In fact, the FBI does not send unsolicited e-mails to the public. Should you receive unsolicited messages that feature the FBI's name, seal, or that reference a division or unit within the FBI or an individual employee, report it to the Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov.