MySpace Shuts Down User Profiles Due To Worm Infection

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MySpace Shuts Down User Profiles Due To Worm Infection

A worm directed victims to a phishing site where they were asked to
type in their user name and password, a security firm said.

By Antone Gonsalves
InformationWeek
Dec 4, 2006 04:20 PM

MySpace over the weekend shutdown hundreds of user profiles that had
been infected by a worm that directed victims to a phishing site where
they were asked to type in their user name and password, a security
firm said.

As of Monday, all infected profiles on the popular social network had
been taken down, Websense said. Out of the half-dozen phishing sites
used in the attack, only one remained operational.

The worm, which was discovered Friday, exploited the Javascript support
within Apple Computer's QuickTime player, which can be embedded in
MySpace user profiles. The vulnerabilities were used to replace the
legitimate links on MySpace profiles with links to the phishing site.

People logged into MySpace could have their profiles infected by simply
visiting an infected profile. The malicious code was able to find
visitors' profiles through cookies in the victims' browsers, said Dan
Hubbard, VP for security research at Websense. Besides changing links,
the worm also embedded the infected video in victims' profiles.

People redirected to a phishing site were asked for their MySpace user
name and password. Such information could be useful to gain access to a
person's personal social network, making it easier to launch more
malicious attacks by posing as the victim in instant messages, Hubbard
said.

In October, MySpace had 49 million unique visitors, according to
Nielsen/NetRatings. The worm infection isn't the first for the site,
which has been attacked in the past by scripts with similar methods of
spreading.

In July, a worm spreading through the site embedded JavaScript code
into profiles that redirected visitors to a site claiming the U.S.
government was behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks