noobies guide to ‘friendster hacked’

Friday, December 19, 2008

“If you are having doubts in opening a link, try using your favorite search engine to get information about it “

The pictures you’ll see here are the ones being posted on several friendster profile comments. DON’T EVER CLICK ON THESE PICTURES IN FRIENDSTER! Even if looks like something from YouTube, Yahoo, or other reputable sites..

Of course I’m not an authority to speak on how malicious viruses, spywares, or worms work in detail or get distributed massively. But I’d like to share a quick and VERY basic guide (a noobies guide) on what to do with stuff like this:

[1] Hold your horses. Not because there’s a woman (or a man) with a great body looking straight at you from your 22-inch monitor means you have to click on them to follow the lead towards the pot of gold. Get it elsewhere. A good social networking site will not lure you into this.

[2] Roll your mouse pointer over the pictures or hyperlinks found in some friendster profiles. DO NOT CLICK ON THEM! I repeat. DO NOT CLICK ON THEM! They won’t take their clothes off when you click on them.  So I repeat, DO NOT CLICK ON THEM!

What you should to is look at the lower left corner of your browser window while your mouse pointer is over those pictures or hyperlinks. Assuming your status bar is enabled, you should see the actual link or web address of that object you’re about to click on. If it displays something that looks malicious to you, don’t click on it. (If you can’t see it, it’s either: [1] it is not linked, or [2] your status bar is not enabled. To display the status bar, go to the menus on top of the browser window, click on ‘View’, and then ‘Status Bar’.)

NOTE: Some of the web addresses displayed for the object appears to be something familiar, like “mail.yahooo.com” or “en.wikipidia.com”, but notice the incorrect spellings. It’s most likely a bogus or malicious site.

Sample pictures in friendster that you dare not click on (read: in friendster. If you click on it from this blog, nothing will happen):

 

 Some ‘almost nude’ pix…

 …and then, some wholesome videos.

 

The first couple of picture comments will display “http://free4uwebcams.com” or “http://friendjster.com/1″ upon rolling your mouse pointer over it. The last one is pointed to “http://login2.friendjster.com/1″ and is NOT a YouTube video. It is not even a video at all. These will direct you to probably a malicious site or straight into the hackers’ hands. —> (Again, you are not stupid to open or go to this links. Repeat. You are not stupid to open or go to this links.)

That applies to all other sites and web links. If you are having doubts in opening a link, try using your favorite search engine to get information about it (use the link as the search keywords). You may just find your answers.

Better be safe than sorry. Better be researching than sorry.

 * * * Update 2008.12.21 / 1:14 am: got another comment with the link now pointing to chatwebcamfree.com. Somehow something tells me its getting worse. I wonder what the friendster webmasters are doing about this.

* * * Update 2008.12.21 / 4:13 am: more friends are getting these comments; I already emailed friendster about it. I am not obsessed about the issue, but I guess I should at least do something instead of just writing a blog about it. That’s the least I can do. I’ll send an update if I get a reply, or if they get to fix the mess.

friendster hacked?

Not really one of the first thoughts I had when a friend of mine posted a comment on my friendster account with an almost nude picture of a woman captioned ’see me naked’. Of course I would love to (lol), but then I know its a member of the adware and malware population lurking over the Internet. This means that: [1] her friendster was hacked, or [2] her PC and friendster were hacked.

I was right and wrong at the same time.

I was right that her account was hacked. I was wrong to think that only her account was hacked. It turns out that many other friendster subscribers had their accounts ‘hacked’, and soon enough a handful other friends submitted similar pictures and captions to my comments box. Good thing, I configured my account to wait for my approval before any comment will be posted live. Besides, even if it’s posted on my page outright, I only get less than a hundred profile views per month. Minor problem.

And then, a former officemate posted this in the bulletin: “Friendster Members Hacked by Free Webcam Site”

I erased personal details and uploaded photos from my friendster account right away just for safeguarding. It might have been too late, but you’ll never know. I hope I won’t see my pictures on some bogus or malicious websites for any reason. I wish my personal details haven’t been compromised. Darn, imagine the possibilities. And imagine how dumb I am, together with you and billion other world-wide-webbed human beings, for letting this happen.

But then again, subscribing to these technologies seemed inevitable. Let’s just hope the sites, organizations, and webcampaigns we subscribed into have secured databases and impenetrable systems and networks. But hey, wake up, that’s wishful thinking.