Web Security News

Man drops lawsuit against Facebook as Koobface returns

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Web security researchers have spotted a new variant of the Koobface social networking virus on Facebook, some users of which received spam messages with links to a fake YouTube spoof that asks users to download a malware version of Adobe Flash.

Facebook has been working with its security partners to clean the site of the virus, which has popped up on various social networking sites since last year.

But last week, a Florida man filed a lawsuit against Facebook claiming the company has not adequately protected users from viruses.

Theodore Karantsalis, a librarian and self-described privacy activist, was seeking $70.50 from Facebook in the lawsuit, which he filed in Miami-Dade County court. On Tuesday, he dropped the lawsuit, according to CNET News.

"I spoke with [Facebook]'s law department and the case has been resolved," Karantsalis wrote in an email, CNET reported.

Karantsalis told CNET his Facebook friends told him they were receiving messages from his account that directed people to a phishing site with a URL ending in ".im."

CNET reported that Karantsalis has previously sued several other organizations over alleged rights infringements, including Sprint and the city of Miami Springs, where he lives.

The Microsoft Malware Protection Center (MMPC) worked with Facebook to add detection of Koobface to the latest version of Microsoft's virus removal tool in early April.

MMPC said last month it had removed Koobface 200,000 times from over 133,677 computers.
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