45,000 Facebook Accounts Affected As Ramnit Malware Went Social

Previously much has been said about the Ramnit worm, which presented a security threat to data stored on computers in many countries. Recently, same virus started targeting the most famous social networking website, Facebook. The virus reportedly got hold of data from around 45,000 accounts while Facebook in an official statement on Friday claimed that the data it has stolen was mostly “outdated”. When one blogger Emile Protalinski pressed on the stolen data issue, Facebook official clarified that more than half of the stolen data was comprised of expired or old passwords and invalid logins.

“Last week we received from external security researchers a set of user credentials that had been harvested by a piece of malware,” Facebook explains in its statement. “Our security experts have reviewed the data, and while the majority of the information was out-of-date, we have initiated remedial steps for all affected users to ensure the security of their accounts.”

Facebook official further stated.

Facebook claimed that it is strengthening its security further and asked users “not to click on any unfriendly link” and let Facebook security team know about “any suspicious activity by highlighting it”.

Facebook’s security was always under lines of fire as this was not the first time something has hit the service of this famous California based social networking giant. Previously, one spam started appearing on many users’ wall containing a link to an adult video without even the users’ acknowledgement.

As posted by one Israeli security company Seculert, Ramnit worm has stolen Facebook account credentials.

“We suspect that the attackers behind Ramnit are using the stolen credentials to log-in to victims’ Facebook accounts and to transmit malicious links to their friends, thereby magnifying the malware’s spread even further,”

Seculert further clarified.

Ramnit was first discovered in April 2010 while Microsoft’s Malware Protection Center described it as “a multi-component malware family which infects Windows executable as well as HTML files”, “stealing sensitive information such as stored FTP credentials and browser cookies”. In past, it didn’t receive any attention from most anti-virus software as it used to work on outdated technique. But recently, it is being claimed that hackers have merged the code with another dangerous malware ZeuS and thus it has become very harmful for all computer users.

In the same statement, Facebook went on asking to “encourage our users to become fans of the Facebook Security Page for additional security information”. But we doubt if it will help as the said page will give you no update on this Ramnit intrusion and the last update which can be seen on this so-called “security page” is carrying the date 26 December.

(Via PCWorld)

aavishkar Paranjape

Gadget freak, Apple lover; well that’s me! I have been in this wonderful field of freelance writing for quite some time and looking forward to develop more illuminating content related to gadgets or technology as I go along.

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