Update 2010.09.30
There is a new Linkedin Spam and Linkedin Malware (or Linkedin Virus if you would prefer to search it this way) making rounds since Monday 9/27, so I advise readers of this blog to be careful on opening suspicious Linkedin Mail Invites. This incident is related to the notorious Zbot/Zeus Malware and Trend Micro detects the samples as a TROJ_ZBOT variants. The related spam messages and website links are also blocked via Trend Micro Smart Protection Network (which is good news to TM users 🙂 ).
Read Cisco Blog here for more info.
Original article below was info from January 2009 (Fake Linkedin Sites of Beyonce and other high profile stars), and is not directly related to this Linkedin Virus 2010 incident.
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TrendLabs reports that there are several fake Linkedin sites out there that hosts redirects to malicious content (read: malware). The fake Linkedin sites poses as the profiles of several well-known (and if I may add “hottie”) celebrities like Beyonce Knowles, Kirsten Dunst, Christina Ricci, Salma Hayek, Kate Hudson and Victoria Beckham. Unknown computer users are then tricked on visiting these bogus sites and will lead to malware infection of their workstations.
Complete details can be found here
Linkedin is a popular social networking site for professionals. Their site describes them as an online network of more than 30 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries. I myself have a Linkedin account that I use to get in touch with friends, colleagues and industry contacts. Given their and their sites popularity it’s logical that bad guys use them as infection vectors (social engineering technique).
I heard that there were similar incidents with Friendster and Facebook during the vacation. Let me do some research and post anything I can find here.
Updates:
The files downloaded from the malicious fake Linkedin profiles are detected by Trend Micro as TROJ_DLOAD.DL which in turn will download some variant of the infamous fake antivirus program (FakeAV).
So guys next time you see a Beyonce or Kristen Dunst profile (Linkedin or not) and it has links to their supposedly nude videos, think twice or thrice before clicking it.