My final post will discuss a third example of a Trojan horse virus that could infect your computer if you aren’t careful. Most of us would be highly susceptible to this virus due to the fact that we are social media obsessed and are on it 24/7.

Koobface was a Trojan Horse that originally targeted users of the networking websites like Facebook, Skype, Yahoo Messenger and email websites such as Google Mail, Yahoo Mail, and AOL Mail, MySpace, hi5, Bebo, Friendster and Twitter.

Koobface is designed to infect Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X, but also can infect Linux.

This Trojan logs into your Facebook profile, and gains access to your entire friends list. Then it posts links to malicious sites that the vulnerable user clicks on then becomes infected. Once it is contracted, Koobface looks for evidence of social media networks and will then post on the users’ behalf links that install the virus. I believe this is similar to what Siyu discussed in her first post about her friend’s Facebook saying that their mother was in an accident and needed money.

We’ve all seen them. “I can’t believe you did this!” “Didn’t you know they were filming you?” The victim clicks on the link and most times the link asks them to download Adobe Flash Player to play the video BUT it is actually downloading Koobface, and soon they too will be posting these links.

In the later versions the virus has stopped using those websites because they improved their protection against Trojan viruses using techniques like Dustin has suggested.

I found a great video that discusses this Trojan and I suggest you watch How Koobface Works

Sources:  Haley, Craig C. “Koobface – What Is It Really?” ThatsNonsense.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.