Virus through Facebook?

[jtwhite]

I find it hilarious that people claim to have acquired viruses by merely using Facebook and not downloading / executing files on their system. I personally do not believe it's possible.

Can a file maliciously be downloaded and executed from Facebook.com without your knowledge and infect your system? I think not.

Prove me wrong please? I'd like to actually see some factual evidence proving that you can, in fact, acquire a virus by merely browsing the internet and not downloading any executable file and running it.

 

[fukufuji]

I'm not an expert but I think the virus fear is a little overblown. The only virus I ever got from surfing the net was when I was totally careless and executed an application I thought was going to be something I wanted when in fact it was a virus in disguise. I wiped my computer and it was gone. I don't think viruses are put on the computer without allowing them to get there by executing a function.

 

[jtwhite]

I'm not an expert but I think the virus fear is a little overblown. The only virus I ever got from surfing the net was when I was totally careless and executed an application I thought was going to be something I wanted when in fact it was a virus in disguise. I wiped my computer and it was gone. I don't think viruses are put on the computer without allowing them to get there by executing a function.

Yes, I completely agree with you.

 

[Brandon]

Has happened to me before through MySpace. Malicious cookies.

 

[jtwhite]

I don't understand how that's possible. Did a virus actually download to your computer and install itself?

 

[Brandon]

No the cookie contained the code which affecting the browser, once it can do that it can background install things.

 

[Danielx386]

Correct, it can happen with face-book, just by the use of badly written cookies. Infact, it can happen on any website.

 

[galaxyAbstractor]

I find it hilarious that people claim to have acquired viruses by merely using Facebook and not downloading / executing files on their system. I personally do not believe it's possible.

Can a file maliciously be downloaded and executed from Facebook.com without your knowledge and infect your system? I think not.

Prove me wrong please? I'd like to actually see some factual evidence proving that you can, in fact, acquire a virus by merely browsing the internet and not downloading any executable file and running it.

There is iFrame trojans, like HTML:IFrame-JR [Trj]. Avast! warns me about them time from time, and blocks the connection.

 

[kkenny]

Wow, it's such a dangerous internet nowadays.

 

[Sharky]

My AV has claimed to have protected me from flash ads on FB before...

 

[ah-blabla]

BTW, cookies are simple text files, not executables, being infected by cookies is highly unlikely, (well, it's possible on a (very) badly coded browser), since they are only stored, usually in a browser specific format, and aren't executed by the browser. Cookies are more a privacy issue. For a cookie virus to infect you, binary content which the cookie might be storing still needs to be executed (since they can still store binary content), but getting that to happen is very hard, since on the text file on disk the code would be in between all the other data.

You might want to read this as well.

 

[farscapeone]

Yes I agree. "Badly coded browser" is a perfect description. One more reason to think twice about using Internet Explorer (especially IE6).

The only way you can get infected by simply browsing the Internet is if somebody exploited security holes in your browser.

 

[Kayos]

I know of like three cases personally where people have gotten viruses from facebook. One was pretty tough to get rid of too.

 

[jtwhite]

BTW, cookies are simple text files, not executables, being infected by cookies is highly unlikely, (well, it's possible on a (very) badly coded browser), since they are only stored, usually in a browser specific format, and aren't executed by the browser. Cookies are more a privacy issue. For a cookie virus to infect you, binary content which the cookie might be storing still needs to be executed (since they can still store binary content), but getting that to happen is very hard, since on the text file on disk the code would be in between all the other data.

You might want to read this as well.

Yeah that's what I thought. People seem to claim otherwise.

 

[wolflock]

I think it is possible, but then again. I have lost touch with the Technology world quite a few years back.

 

[hotelroyal]

True That

 

[Smith6612]

Many times when I see viruses coming from social networking sites, it's either from the ads on the site, or it's from someone's profile which contains a lot of images or javascript. Seriously though, if you're a person who tends to come across malicious software a lot, run Anti-executable software such as Faronics AntiExecutable (pay) or GeSWall (free).

 

[Danielx386]

yeah, at school, we use Faronics Deep freeze, a software that reset the computer back to how it was after restarting the computer. We got local admin rights on the computers, but when we reboot, it get reset.

 

[Smith6612]

yeah, at school, we use Faronics Deep freeze, a software that reset the computer back to how it was after restarting the computer. We got local admin rights on the computers, but when we reboot, it get reset.

Many of the schools around here use DeepFreeze as well. I do recall hearing over the summer that there is a new piece of Malware that actually bypasses DeepFreeze all together and manages to stay intact through a reboot (it installs just like any other piece of Malware). I haven't seen this exploit in person, but right now Faronics hasn't released too much on that matter. The funny thing is, if Anti-Executable software were in place, DeepFreeze wouldn't fall to the Malware as the Anti-Executable software would kill the program. I'm curious if there is a proof-of-concept for me to look at on the Internet at one of the sites I know of, of this DeepFreeze bypassing Malware.

 

[Danielx386]

Well I heard, (but I don't know ift it true, I will test it at home ) that you could get around Deep freeze by booting the computer in safe mode, do what you want to do, and reboot. Because I don't think the service would load up in safe mode. (Ok I won't say any more about that, as I could get introube for hacking the system)