You might be feeling very pleased that someone has chosen to brighten up your lonely existence by sending you a nice video on Facebook Messenger.
But you’d be heartily advised to think before you click because that vid could be hiding a nasty virus.
Tech experts have issued a warning about malware that’s spread using Facebook Messenger and designed to hijack people’s computers and put them to work mining bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.
If you receive a YouTube link with a dodgy title like ‘this video is yours’ then you should make sure to avoid clicking it, because it’s probably designed to drag you onto a criminal website and take control of your computer.
Some people who took the bait claim their Facebook accounts were compromised so they churned out spam posts designed to lure even more people into falling into hackers’ traps.
It’s been claimed that a virus from 2014 called Sorpampa is to blame for some of the recent attacks, although this rumour cannot be substantiated.
Facebook told us it had not received reports about the spread of Sorpampa.
Cyber-security experts recently sounded the alarm about a piece of malware called Digmine which works in a similar way.
It can turn computers into cryptocurrency mining machines and can also ‘manipulate Facebook Messenger in order to send a link to the file to the account’s friends’, according to Trend Micro.
This means it will send out messages trying to trick even more people into clicking on the video and becoming infected.
This virus only effects Facebook on the Chrome browser running on a desktop computer.
In a blog post Trend Micro wrote: ‘A known modus operandi of cryptocurrency-mining botnets, and particularly for Digmine is to stay in the victim’s system for as long as possible.
‘It also wants to infect as many machines as possible, as this translates to… potentially more cybercriminal income.’
MORE: Something very strange is going on with YouTube and its shadowy ‘enforcement system’
MORE: Has my Uber data been breached? How to see if hackers stole your info
You might be feeling very pleased that someone has chosen to brighten up your lonely existence by sending you a nice video on Facebook Messenger.
But you’d be heartily advised to think before you click because that vid could be hiding a nasty virus.
Tech experts have issued a warning about malware that’s spread using Facebook Messenger and designed to hijack people’s computers and put them to work mining bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.
If you receive a YouTube link with a dodgy title like ‘this video is yours’ then you should make sure to avoid clicking it, because it’s probably designed to drag you onto a criminal website and take control of your computer.
Some people who took the bait claim their Facebook accounts were compromised so they churned out spam posts designed to lure even more people into falling into hackers’ traps.
It’s been claimed that a virus from 2014 called Sorpampa is to blame for some of the recent attacks, although this rumour cannot be substantiated.
Facebook told us it had not received reports about the spread of Sorpampa.
Cyber-security experts recently sounded the alarm about a piece of malware called Digmine which works in a similar way.
It can turn computers into cryptocurrency mining machines and can also ‘manipulate Facebook Messenger in order to send a link to the file to the account’s friends’, according to Trend Micro.
This means it will send out messages trying to trick even more people into clicking on the video and becoming infected.
This virus only effects Facebook on the Chrome browser running on a desktop computer.
In a blog post Trend Micro wrote: ‘A known modus operandi of cryptocurrency-mining botnets, and particularly for Digmine is to stay in the victim’s system for as long as possible.
‘It also wants to infect as many machines as possible, as this translates to… potentially more cybercriminal income.’
MORE: Something very strange is going on with YouTube and its shadowy ‘enforcement system’
MORE: Has my Uber data been breached? How to see if hackers stole your info
