Google Fixes Orkut Worm Attack

Google security personnel clamped down to stop the spread of a prolific spam worm launched on its social networking site Orkut.

The worm, which was reported yesterday by McAfee Avert Labs, had gained ground by spreading quickly from friend to friend. The virus affected the profiles of almost 400,000 of its members, most of which were from Brazil. While Google initially aimed Orkut toward users in the United States, the networking site has become incredibly popular in Brazilian communities.

The worm was transmitted when members received malicious scraps written in Portuguese. When translated to English, one scrap read, "2008 is coming. I wish that it begins quite well for you."

Upon receiving the scraps, the members' browsers then downloaded and executed the embedded virus. After adding its victims to a community called "Infectados Pelo Virus Orkut" or "Those Infected by the Orkut Virus," the worm then started to send messages to members of the affected user's friends list.

The virus spread through Orkut's new tool that allows users to write messages containing HTML code. The ability to add Flash/Javascript content to Orkut scraps was only recently introduced.

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