A new attack on Facebook has been making the rounds this week, thanks in part to the social networking service’s ‘Like’ feature – and both Mac and Windows users are vulnerable.
According to F-Secure’s News from the Lab blog, a Lithuanian server is dishing out the malware that appears to be targeting U.S. and U.K. users with links to a video that claims to show International Monetary Fund director Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Victims who click on the link get served Windows or Mac malware, depending on which operating system they are running. Users in Germany, Finland, France, India and Malaysia are being re-directed to Youtube, F-Secure said.
For Windows users who fall victim to the attack, PCs are infected with a Trojan while according to a report from anti malware firm Sophos. Clicking with through on a Mac unleashes a type of MacDefender attack – a new form of rogue anti malware software that is targeted to users of Mac OS X operating system.
Apple pushed an update just yesterday to combat against similar attacks and remove the MacDefender malware, though there are reports that MacDefender has been updated to sidestep the patch.
Scams that use Facebook to spread are hardly new. There have been dozens of reported scams that use the massive social network to lead users to phishing sites via clickjacking. However, this is one of the first to spread malware directly through a viral video link.
