 Two types of malware propagating through social networks, Cross Site Scripting (XSS) and Koobface worm.  How these two types of malware are propagated through social networks.  What is being done to help prevent the spread of malware on social networks

The first major online social network worm is detected as Samy worm, a cross scripting attack, on MySpace. Koobface is the best known social networking malware. Social Networking Malware Total number of profile infections after 20 hours

Research has been done in modeling and simulation of spreading worms since online social networks serve lots of users around the world. To begin the simulation of the trend of XSS worm and Koobface worm propagation. Researchers assume that a single visit on the social network site is an event. A visited person has two states which include: the visited profile is one of the visitor’s friends and the visited profile belongs to none of the visitor’s friends. For this research, it has been assumed all people in the network are vulnerable Modeling and Simulation of Spreading Worms

XXS worm propagation simulation in the social network has one person chosen with an equal probability. The chosen person visits their friends with the probability of q Modeling and Simulation of Spreading XSS

Another experiment is to understand the effect of the total number of infected profiles on XSS propagation. It is assumed that 1,10,100,1000 and 5000 initial infected profiles in the simulation with the probability q equal to 0.9. Modeling and Simulation of XSS

Simulated Propagation on Koobface worm In each case the user checks if it has a spam message. With the probability p, that the user clicks the link and executes the malware. The user is infected and sends spam messages containing the malicious link to all their friends. It was assumed that all people execute the malicious code with the same probability of p equals 0.5 and 0.7.

To visualize how the Koobface worm spreads faster than XSS worms, presume figure three is a small social network A small Social network Modeling and Simulation of Spreading Worms

To provide a sense of the scale and scope of malware attacks on websites, consider the following statistics: Every 1.3 seconds a new web page is getting infected 77% of Web sites with malicious code are legitimate sites that have been compromised The number of malware-infected web pages has grown 12x in 4 years 40% percent of social network user have encountered malicious attacks What is the anti-virus and anti-malware communities doing to protect social network users?

Cloud anti-virus Cloud anti-virus involves moving the detection of malicious and unwanted files from end hosts, into the network. Clients no longer need to continually update their local signature database. Symantec and BitDefender, two security firms, are starting to experiment with Facebook apps that are a social networking cloud anti-virus

When the apps detect a malicious link on the user’s wall, they include the alert in a report. Warns the user when his Facebook profile settings have a privacy risk. The apps are testing social networking capabilities of Facebook, providing features to alert the user’s Facebook friends if the links they shared are malicious.

A lot of major flaws with social networks come down to user awareness and user responsibility. Some people don’t fully understand what malware does and others don’t use any form of antivirus software. Today, I have explained two different types of malware, Koobface and Cross Site Scripting, and how they are spread throughout social networks. Also, how anti-virus communities are trying to prevent the spread of malware throughout social networks. Questions? Conclusion