MySpace hooks the phising sites by removing the worm from user profiles.
Hundreds of user profiles were inundated with similar content from contacts on their friends’ lists, and many victims were left wondering why they had been removed as a friend.
A worm that directed users to a phishing site, which MySpace discovered on Friday, caused the solicitation of messages.
Users who were redirected by the worm to one of the phishing sites were asked for their username and password, which was in turn used to gain access to their personal profiles on the site.
Once access was gained, any number of spam mail could be sent to the contacts on the user’s profile.
The worm used Javascript to exploit Apple’s Quick Time player, which can be embedded into MySpace profiles.
Once a profile was vulnerable, legitimate links on MySpace were replaced with infected links which led to the phishing sites.
MySpace’s over 70 million registered users could even have their profile infected simply by viewing a profile that had the worm.
In order to rectify the situation, MySpace shut down all infected user profiles over the weekend, also shutting down five of the six phishing sites used to gain profile access. The “place for friends” assures users that all profiles containing the infection have been deactivated.
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Autmn Davis is a staff writer for Murdok covering ebusiness and technology.
