Rogue Facebook apps sending phishing spam
Thursday, August 20, 2009
A number of rogue applications have been spotted on Facebook by security researchers from Trend Micro. The apps include one called "sex sex sex and more sex" that takes users to a phishing website for stealing login credentials.
Trend Micro researcher Rik Ferguson said on the web security company's Countermeasures blog that a number of apps connected to a known phishing domain attempt to harvest users' Facebook login names and passwords in order to send out more phishing spam from their accounts.
Other apps called Inbox (1), Inbox (2), Birthday Invitations, Stream and Your Photos send out messages to users directing them to an external site called fucabook.com, where they are prompted to give their credentials.
Facebook and other popular web 2.0 sites like Twitter and MySpace frequently come under attack by cybercriminals.
According to a recent report from Breach Security, 19 percent of hacking incidents in the first half of 2009 involved social networking sites.
Security experts warn users to be cautious of messages from unknown users and to be wary of clicking on suspicious looking links.
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