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Google's Orkut hacked w/non-malicious worm

2 min read

This thread's last reply is from . Advice, software, and links below may be out of date — treat specific steps and download links with caution.

FYI…

- http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?do…&print=true
DECEMBER 19, 2007 - "A fast-moving cross-site scripting worm spread overnight through Google's Orkut social network, infecting users who viewed the emails or Orkut messages carrying its payload. The victims didn't even have to click on a link to be infected. The worm, which used Flash-based JavaScript malware and took advantage of an XSS vulnerability in Orkut, added the victims to its rogue Orkut community, reportedly called "Infectados pelo Virus do Orkut," which at one point today had captured hundreds of thousands of involuntary members. Scraps, or message posts to an Orkut user's profile, were the main culprit. Victims either got alerts from Orkut that they had a new entry to their scrapbook, or received emails from other Orkut friends who also had been infected. The worm was adding members to its rogue Orkut community at a rate of about 100 per minute at one time during the attack. Orkut fixed the XSS bug earlier today, but according to OrkutPlus, a security community within the social network, the vulnerability was still active in Orkut's so-called sandbox profiles as of this posting. Google's Orkut sandboxes are closed "containers" for Orkut members, such as developers testing out applications… Security experts say there was no malicious activity associated with the worm – mostly it just was an annoyance to the infected users and their friends that caught the worm from them. "It's just a proof-of-concept, but had it been real, it could have harvested hundreds of thousands of Google accounts," says one researcher who was infected by the attack…"
> http://www.symantec.com/security_response/…-121909-5953-99

:wacko: :(
More on this:

- http://atlas.arbor.net/briefs/index#-1264060696
December 19, 2007 - "The Google social network "Orkut" was hit with a cross site scripting worm overnight. This malicious code affected about 400,000 users and spread through viewed "scrapbook" entries. Google appears to have stopped the attack. No further damage was done to the victims' systems.
Analysis: This is yet another social network attack, one of the first for Orkut. We will continue to see these sorts of attacks affecting web 2.0 applications in the future."

Also:
- http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001342.html
December 19, 2007

- http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=3769
Last Updated: 2007-12-19 17:57:39 UTC

- http://www.avertlabs.com/research/blog/ind…m-worm-spotted/
"…clearly illustrates the issue with allowing rich-content on social/professional networking sites, and not sanitizing it enough…"

- http://vil.nai.com/vil/Content/v_143807.htm
SubType - JavaScript

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