Beware fake YouTube pages, warns Panda
After targeting Facebook and MySpace, hackers have now come out with a fake YouTube page creator program to infect unsuspecting surfers, according to security experts at PandaLabs. John Stokdyk reports.
The YTFakeCreator kit was uncovered last week and makes it easy for cyber-criminals to create spoof YouTube pages. They then send out spam emails containing a link to promised excitements, but as with the MySpace and Facebook lures, the victim is then confronted with a dialogue box telling them they need to download an update to see the video.
YTFakeCreator lets the user enter bespoke text for error messages and set parameters for how long it takes the message to appear. It will also create a false profile similar to those in YouTube to pretend the video has been uploaded by a real user. If you're brave enough to have a look, examples are available on Panda's (legitimate) Flickr.com page.
