Google’s Orkut Hit by Data Stealing Worm – Mw.Orc

[ad]

So just a few days about there was a new MSN Worm – BlackAngel.B, before that the Yahoo! e-mail worm, long before that of course the MySpace worm and a few others not notable enough to mention.

And of course plenty of nasty Trojans.

A new Internet worm capable of stealing bank details and other personal data from users is circulating via Orkut, Google Inc.’s social networking service, a computer security company warned on Monday.

Instant-messaging service provider FaceTime Communications said its software security lab had detected the spread of the electronic virus, the third such threat to disseminate itself via messages posted on Orkut users personal Web pages.

Google’s service, while available globally, is wildly popular among Brazilians which make up the bulk of its users.

The malicious program, dubbed by FaceTime as “MW.Orc,” works its way onto users’ personal computers when they click on infected links on Orkut scrapbook pages. The link is followed by a message in Portuguese that entices the user to click.

It seems this is not the first time Orkut has been hit, this one however goes after personal details of a more valuable nature.

Once the link is activated, a file is uploaded to the PC, according to a description of how the worm works contained in a statement by the Foster City, California-based company.

When infected Orkut users using Microsoft Corp.’s widely used Windows XP operating system to find personal files on their PCs through their “My Computer” icon, that triggers an e-mail back to the creator of MW.Orc creator filled with personal information stored on the PC, FaceTime said.

The earlier attempt seemed to be more of a phishing affair.

The new threat to Orkut follows an earlier worm, Banker-BWD, which was uncovered by Sophos, an anti-virus company.

That malicious software also disseminated itself through Orkut’s scrapbook pages, but automatically transferred the victims to fake Web pages of banks in order to entice the users to enter personal data that can then be stolen by the hackers.

People are getting pretty handy with all this HTML worm business, I’m impressed.

Source: Reuters