Ramnit Worm Goes Viral and Steals 45,000 Facebook Logins
For several years Facebook has been the launching ground for clashes between what is considered to be all-things good and evil over the Internet. The giant social network, harboring over 750 million users worldwide, has undoubtedly had its fair share of attacks in the form of cybercrook attacks, malware infiltration, and now, dangerous worms originally designed to pilfer financial data.
A recently discovered worm, aptly named Ramnit worm, has been exposed to scour Facebook users for login data containing a username and password. Traces of the Ramnit worm have been around since April 2010, when it was primarily designed to steal financial data and infect various files on a PC. Now, Ramnit worm has shown its ugly face on Facebook, the largest social network in the world. It rather reminds us of a time years ago when Koobface was the dominating worm riding the virtual coattail of Facebook.
Researchers from the security company Seculert, have revealed that Ramnit worm has sent upwards of 45,000 Facebook login credentials to command and control servers. Command and control servers are essentially botnets, or a group of computers infected with specialized malware designed to send instructions to other infected systems, which carry out malicious actions over the Internet. The Ramnit worm can be said to be somewhat of a liaison to providing these compromised servers with an abundance of Facebook login credentials (usernames and passwords).
By obtaining Facebook login credentials, the Ramnit worm may easily arm cybercrooks with the ability to spread malicious links throughout users' Facebook accounts. This means Ramnit will give unadulterated access to ones Facebook account and allowing a hacker to post unsuspecting links on friends' Facebook news feeds, status updates, and walls, which could contain malware or downloads that further spread the Ramnit infection.
We suspect that the aggressive use of the Ramnit worm via Facebook could result in a continuous spread of Ramnit through Facebook. By Facebook having a virtually endless supply of potential victims, the Ramnit worm could prove to be one of the most dangerous malware infections to roil the Internet in 2012.
When we welcomed in the New Year, we already expected to see showers of malware to pore over the Internet in an abundance of orchestrated storms. Nevertheless, the Ramnit worm has not only cast a dark shadow for Facebook users, but whomever uses a PC to access the Internet could become a victim of the newest variant of the Ramnit worm intended to steal data.
What can you do to avoid the Ramnit Worm on Facebook?
Avoiding malware on Facebook, specifically the Ramnit worm, can be accomplished by your hesitation when it comes to clicking on links posted by Facebook friends. Usually, enticing links on Facebook are ones to look out for. Many links on Facebook laced with malware are ones that really attract your attention or promise something that may seem too good to be true. If you are at all the least bit suspicious of a link posted by a Facebook friend, then it may be best to avoid clicking on it. As always, it is prudent that you utilize antispyware or antivirus software to detect and remove threats such as the Ramnit worm.