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Farmville, 'Sex and the City 2' used as bait in Facebook's 'Like' button hijack - PandaLabs |
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PandaLabs, the anti-malware laboratory of Panda Security, has reported the proliferation of scams hijacking the Facebook "Like" option. The attack uses eye-catching messages related to the popular game Farmville, the "Sex and the City 2" movie or the keyword “sex” to grab the attention of logged-in Facebook users as they browse Web pages with the "Like" button, the Facebook wall feature or messaging system.  Clicking the link brings the user to a Web page containing photos and videos of the relevant topic. Upon visiting it, a message is displayed on the user's Facebook profile indicating that they "like" it, with a text that is not controlled by the user. Luis Corrons, Technical Director of PandaLabs, said in a blog post, "This distribution technique reminds us of computer worms, although this time there doesn't seem to be any malware behind it (at least yet)." The technique, known as 'clickjacking,' uses a malformed URL with embedded code to carry out the attack. Visiting users are tricked into "liking" a page without necessarily realizing that they are recommending it to all of their Facebook friends. "Cyber-criminals can make money just by tricking you into visiting a Web page with ads," Luis Corrons says. "Or worse still, they can spread malware and infect you. This possibility has not yet been exploited, but it would be relatively easy and effective to do it." Their real business stems from the pay-per-click system, which counts every click and generates revenue for affiliates, and from the tests offered to users on every page, which they must pay to make. |
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