New Virus Uses Facebook To Steal Passwords, 800,000 Users Affected

If you are a Facebook user, this information might be of interest to you. A new virus is hitting users, 800,000 of them, by stealing their passwords.

According to Italian security investigators, the malware hijacks Facebook accounts and also users browsers.

The researchers found that the virus appears as a link in your email or Facebook message saying that someone has tagged you in a post.

You are then directed to a different site, which asks you to open a new browser extension or plug in in order to watch the video. Bam, you’re infected.

Once the attackers get into your browser, they can access everything you have stored in it including accounts with saved passwords.

If you store your passwords to you different social networking sites in your browser, then you can be at an even higher risk of being attacked.

At the moment, researchers find that this new Facebook virus is affecting Google Chrome and Firefox users at a rate of 40,000 attacks per hour, with a total of 800,000 so far.

Google is aware of the virus and has disabled the extension that allows it to attack browsers. Facebook is also working on intercepting the links.

Facebook is blocking people from clicking on the link containing the virus, but it’s a good idea to use caution even if you receive a link from someone in your contact list as they can be the ones infected.

As a precaution, you should not open links that instruct you to install a new plug-in in order to watch videos on Facebook at the moment.

It is estimated that about 70 percent of people use Google Chrome as their browser. So far Internet Explorer and Safari seem to be unaffected by this latest virus.

There is no sure way to avoid the new Facebook virus, if you use Chrome or Safari; just use common sense and pass the word around.