Ride the Lightning
Cybersecurity and Future of Law Practice Blog
by Sharon D. Nelson Esq., President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
Phony Malaysian Videos on Facebook Spread Malware
March 19, 2014
If you read or listened to the news yesterday, you are aware that Facebook has once again been used to spread malware. It was a classic – something that captures the public's attention, like the mystery of what happened to Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, results in fake video postings on Facebook.
The videos claim, “Malaysia Plane MH370 Has Been Spotted Somewhere Near Bermuda Triangle” or some variation of that theme, and they depict photos of such things as supposed survivors, rubber rafts, the plane's wing, etc.
If they click on the video link, and many did, users are redirected to malicious phishing sites and prompted to share the video before watching it, thus legitimizing the video to the phishing victim's friend list and a sure indication that the link leads to something malicious.
As we lecture all the time, Facebook is a perfect vehicle for cybercriminals. Their phony postings may not live long (Facebook aggressively eradicates these things once it becomes aware of them), but they don't need to live long to get huge numbers of people to compromise their data.
Bad enough to compromise your own machines, but doubtless many people clicked on these links from work, potentially compromising their employer's network. No matter how many times people are warned to be careful, the compulsion to click on links like these seems hard to resist. Cybercriminals count on that, so the message is essentially, "Don't be a chump." A simple search on Google News would have shown that the video messages were false.
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