New stealthy botnet Trojan holds Facebook users hostage
A new strain of cybercrime Trojan is targeting Facebook users by taking over their machines and shaking them down for cash.
Carberp, like its predecessors ZeuS and SpyEye, infects machines by tricking punters into opening PDFs and Excel documents loaded with malicious code, or attacks computers in drive-by downloads. The hidden malware is designed to steal account information, and harvest credentials for email and social-networking sites.
A new configuration of the Carberp Trojan targets Facebook users to ultimately steal e-cash vouchers. Previous malware attacks on Facebook have been designed purely to slurp login info, so this latest skirmish, spotted by transaction security firm Trusteer, can be considered something of an escalation.