08 November 2006, 16:38

Official: Porn can give you worms.

Security company Websense has warned of adult videos on MySpace pages which look as if they come from YouTube. In fact the films are hosted by the website yootube.info. When they are played the videos try to get the user to install the "Zango Cash Toolbar" adware program via a Windows Media Player dialogue box. The video can only be viewed if the user agrees to the installation.

The trust that many users have in MySpace and YouTube is being exploited by the misleading domain yootube.info to install unwanted software onto their computers. This appears to represent a new trend. Wikipedia's reputation is also currently being exploited by criminals to infiltrate malware.

It is to be anticipated that fraudulent websites will increasingly utilise such social engineering approaches to attract their victims and infiltrate not just adware, but also spyware and trojans. The "Zango Cash Toolbar" adware program installed in this case - formally known as 180Solutions - is of the more harmless variety. It merely opens a number of popups each day. The website operators responsible for the toolbar installation receive money from Zango based on the number of installations.

The company was recently ordered to pay a 3 million US dollar fine for distributing adware. From now on, Zango can only install its program with the user's express consent. This consent is apparently now to be obtained using the support of the porn industry.