A malicious program that sprang up on Facebook.com in late July has surfaced again, this time using Google"s Web sites to sneak around security filters. On Tuesday, researchers at unified threat management vendor Fortinet noticed that a program similar to the Koobface worm had started using the Google Reader and Picasa Web sites to spread. In the attack, criminals host images that look like YouTube videos on the Google sites in hopes of tricking victims into downloading malicious Trojan software.
Hackers initially unleashed Koobface in late July, but Facebook"s security team soon slowed its spread by blocking the Web sites that were hosting the malicious Trojan software. That has prompted the criminals to change tactics, according to Guillaume Lovet, a senior research manager with Fortinet. In this latest attack they have hosted files that appear to be YouTube videos on Picasa and Google Reader and used Facebook to send them to victims.