Many of you have seen them. And some of you have no doubt been victims too. Malware spreading through social media sites, like Facebook, is definitively something you should look out for. You know those posts. You raise your eyebrows when old Aunt Sophie suddenly shares a pornographic video with all her friends. You had no idea she was into that kind of stuff! Well, she isn’t (necessary). She’s just got infected with a special kind of malware called a social bot.
So what’s going on here? You might feel tempted to check what “Aunt Sophie” really shared with you. But unfortunately your computer isn’t set up properly to watch the video. It lacks some kind of video thingy that need to be installed. Luckily it is easy to fix, you just click the provided link and approve the installation. And you are ready to dive into Aunt Sophie’s stuff. Yes, you probably already figured out where this is going.
The social bots are excellent examples of how technology and social tricks can work together. The actual malware is naturally the “video thingy” that people are tricked to install. To be more precise, it’s usually an extension to your browser. And it’s often masqueraded as a video codec, that is a module that understands and can show a certain video format. Once installed, these extensions run in your browser with access to your social media accounts. And your friends start to receive juicy videos from you.
There are several significant social engineering tricks involved here. First you are presented with content that people want to see. Juicy things like porn or exposed celebrities always work well. But it may actually be anything, from breaking news to cute animals. The content also feels safer and more trustworthy because it seems to come from one of your friends. The final trick is to masquerade the malware as a necessary system component. Well, when you want to see the video, then nothing stops you from viewing it. Right?
It’s so easy to tell people to never accept this kind of additional software. But in reality it’s harder than that. Our technological environment is very heterogeneous and there’s content that devices can’t display out of the box. So we need to install some extensions. Not to talk about the numerous video formats out there. Hand on heart, how many of you can list the video formats your computer currently supports? And which significant formats aren’t supported?
A more practical piece of advice is to only approve extensions when viewing content from a reliable source. And we have learned that Facebook isn’t one. On the other hand, you might open a video on a newspaper or magazine that you frequently visit, and this triggers a request to install a module. This is usually safe because you initiated the video viewing from a service that shouldn’t have malicious intents.
But what if you already are “Aunt Sophie” and people are calling about your strange posts? Good first aid is going to our On-line Scanner. That’s a quick way to check your system for malware. A more sustainable solution is our F-Secure SAFE.
Ok, finally the poll. How do you react when suddenly told that you need to download and install software to view a video? Be honest, how did you deal with this before reading this blog?
[polldaddy poll=9394383]
Safe surfing,
Micke
Image: Facebook.com screenshot
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