Google’s Orkut Hit by Malicious Internet Worm

A new Internet worm capable of stealing bank details and other personal data from users is circulating via Orkut, Google’s social networking service, FaceTime Communications, Instant-messaging service provider, warned on Monday.

FaceTime said its software security lab had detected the spread of the electronic virus, the third such threat to disseminate itself via messages posted on Orkut users’ personal Web pages.

The malicious program, dubbed by FaceTime as “MW.Orc”, works its way onto users’ personal computers when they click on infected links on Orkut scrapbook pages. The link is followed by a message in Portuguese (Orkut is wildly popular in Brazil) that entices the user to click.

Once the link is activated, a file is uploaded to the computer. When infected Orkut users uses Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system to find personal files on their PCs through their My Computer icon, the worm triggers an email back to the creator of MW.Orc creator filled with personal information stored on the PC, FaceTime said.

That malicious software also disseminated itself through Orkut’s scrapbook pages, but automatically transferred the victims to fake Web pages of banks in order to entice the users to enter personal data that can then be stolen by the hackers.

Orkut has around 21.1-million users, 68.56 percent of whom identify themselves as Brazilians, 12.26 percent as living in the United States and 5.32, who say they live in India.

In a statement, Google said that “Orkut.com users and users of all online services and applications should always be careful when opening or clicking on anything suspicious”. Google said that it is “aware of this issue and will have a temporary fix in place”.

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