Spyware, viruses, & security forum: NEWS - March 26, 2012

A Kaspersky Lab researcher has discovered a Brazilian social engineering campaign that attempts to trick Facebook users into installing a malicious plug-in hosted on Google's Chrome Web Store.

The Facebook scam-page solicits victims by promising to teach them how to "remove the virus from their Facebook profile." Securelist claims that the application has 923 users, according to a post by researcher Fabio Assolini.

Users are asked (in Portuguese) to, "1) Click on install app, 2) click on allow or continue, and, 3) click on install now." Users that decide to click "Install aplicativo" are redirected to the legitimate Chrome Web Store where a malicious extension masquerades as Adobe Flash Player, Assolini wrote.

Once the extension is installed it has complete control of a user's profile. It then sends messages to that user's 'Friends,' encouraging them to install the malicious extension themselves. The app also sends out commands that make its victims' profiles 'Like' certain pages. This is the point. The scammers have created a service of selling 'Likes' to companies trying to promote their profiles on Facebook.

Continued : http://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/facebook-scam-driven-malicious-chrome-extension-032612

Also:
Facebook Scammers Host Trojan Horse Extensions on the Chrome Web Store
Facebook users targeted with account-hijacking Chrome extensions

Ebay users are once again targeted with fake notifications asking them to "confirm their identity".

"Dear eBay Community Member, You're signing in from a computer we're not familiar with," says the bogus message. "That's no problem, but we need to take a few moments just to make sure no one is trying to access your account without permission. Please log in to your account and complete the form on the next page. [Link removed]"

The link points to a spoofed eBay login page. The victims are first asked to type in their login credentials, and then urged to answer their security question and enter their email address. Finally, they are redirected to the real eBay website, while the information inserted in the bogus site is sent to the phishers that set it up.

"The link in the email uses HTML to make it appear that it points to a genuine eBay web address," points out Hoax-Slayer. "Moreover, to further the illusion of legitimacy, the scammers have copied the text of a standard security protocol message that is sometimes employed by eBay to protect user accounts."

Continued :http://www.net-security.org/malware_news.php?id=2049

Also: Crooks Replicate eBay Verification Emails to Steal Accounts

Last week was a bad one to be a cybercrook. Authorities in Russia arrested several men thought to be behind the Carberp banking Trojan, and obtained a guilty verdict against the infamous spammer Leo Kuvayev. In the United States, a jury returned a 33-month jail sentence against a Belarusian who ran a call service for cyber thieves. At the same time, U.S. prosecutors secured a guilty plea against a Russian man who was part of a gang that stole more than $3 million from U.S. businesses fleeced with the help of the ZeuS Trojan.

In August 2010, KrebsOnSecurity broke the news that spam king Leonid "Leo" Aleksandorovich Kuvayev, was being held in a Russian prison awaiting multiple child molestation charges. Late Friday, a Moscow City court judge rendered a guilty verdict against Kuvayev for crimes against the sexual integrity of minors, according to Russian news agency Lenta.ru.

In 2005, the attorney general of Massachusetts successfully sued Kuvayev for violations of the CAN-SPAM Act, a law that prohibits the sending of e-mail that includes false or misleading information about the origins of the message, among other restrictions. Armed with a massive trove of spam evidence gathered largely by lawyers and security experts at Microsoft Corp., the state showed that Kuvayev's operation, an affiliate program known as BadCow, was responsible for blasting tens of millions of junk e-mails peddling everything from pirated software to counterfeit pharmaceuticals and porn.

Continued : https://krebsonsecurity.com/2012/03/a-busy-week-for-cybercrime-justice/

A do-not-track law focused on protecting Web users' privacy may not be necessary, with private groups working to implement recommendations from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the agency's chairman said Monday.

The Digital Advertising Alliance, representing more than 95 percent of online advertisers, and other groups are making "extraordinary strides" in implementing a browser-based do-not-track system, like one the FTC recommended in late 2010, said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz. But if the DAA or other groups do not make more improvements to the system by the end of the year, there will be some momentum in the U.S. Congress to pass do-not-track legislation, he said.

Two bills in Congress -- not including one that applies only to children -- would create a law enforcing a consumer's decision to opt out of online tracking by advertising networks and other businesses. The bills are currently stalled in Congress.

However, Congress should pass a handful of new laws, and private businesses can take more steps to protect online privacy, Leibowitz said. A new FTC privacy report, released Monday, calls on Congress to pass legislation that would allow consumers to have access to personal data held by data brokers and legislation to provide a general privacy framework for Web users.

Continued : http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/252556/ftc_chairman_donottrack_law_may_not_be_needed.html