MySpace users hit by hacker virus

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=401244&in_page_id=1770

Users of the popular MySpace website have been warned by computer experts that viruses linked to the interactive site, which boasts more than one million regular users, are in circulation.

Experts believe that hackers have hit the hugely popular site and say the viruses in circulation can change settings, delete files, secretly track users' movements online and even damage computers.

They believe that the hackers have hidden dangerous software on the site which means that computers can be attacked unaware to users while they are just viewing pages.

"There is a very real threat to users of MySpace, and in fact we have already seen several MySpace specific viruses emerge," Graham Cluley of computer security company Sophos told the Standard Lite newspaper.

[erik-the-red]

1. ][ard|OCP

I read something similar on HardOCP a few weeks ago. If I recall correctly, some of the banner advertisements could secretly install malware.

[Halliburton]

2. and the idiots working for myspace

are so damn incompetent that they can't do anything about it.

[Cha]

3. That's too bad..there's a lot

of networking going on that's good not just the bad stuff.

[Chipper Chat]

4. Is this a Karl Rove ploy to bump up the fear level of kids?

Ergo - scare 'em enough that they'll shed their liberal beliefs like their baby teeth?
I have 3 My-Space accounts and find the administrators to be internet-savvy and rather competent. They always issue alerts about problems and seem to always be on top of things.

[Miss Chybil]

5. Why would pages on a MySpace server be any more vulnerable to

viruses than pages anywhere else? Is there something specific to a MySpace page that makes it different than say a DU page with regard to my computer? I'd really like to know as my kids and I all have MySpace accounts.

[SCRUBDASHRUB]

6. Great....

[neuvocat]

7. A lot can be done with HTML.

There's also java and javascript on their profiles. Let's just say you go to a website that has some malicious code on it, once you go onto that site you're at risk. The same is true if the site has a file like a virus on it that starts opening when you go to it.

Myspace profiles are basically websites. Myspace profiles have those same hazards now that the designers wanted to have slick html coding to include videos and mp3 (which of course may not really be mp3's but-you guessed it-viruses).

[soup]

10. How does this work?

Can just going to an individual page put a virus into play on a person's computer? It (the virus) doesn't have to be downloaded (like a song or video) or opened (like an e-mail attachment) to the computer? It just sits there waiting (embedded?) on a particular page, and clicking on it is like walking into a room where someone has the flu? Is this something that Zone Alarm or somesuch would catch and halt before infection? Is there a way to protect against this - besides just not going there?

soup <---- feeling dumber than George on a segueway...
and wondering because my son's girlfriend spends hour upon hour on this My Space, and his computer has developed some issues recently. But then again, he's a gamer, and others in his group have been experiencing problems, too - so who knows?

[rumpel]

8. "secretly track users' movements online"

that sounds like the DOJ tracking "pedophiles"...

[nicknameless]

9. Aside: MySpace was purchased last year by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.