Absolutely incredible. It's not even 9AM yet, and already the April Fool's stuff has gotten WAY out of hand.
No doubt some of you have heard about the April Fools worm (Conficker.c) going around. Well it turns out there's a Facebook virus that's also making the rounds - something that so far hasn't really hit its stride yet, but has hit the ground running... and doesn't look to be stopping anytime soon.
While the numbers are relatively low (only in the thousands), I guess the estimates are going to skyrocket as the rest of the US/world wakes up to the day. If the predictions are accurate, the reach of this thing is going to be downright spooky.
At the heart of the Facebook virus, it seems like it's pretty basic stuff - a malformed URL that someone is persuaded to click, thereby infecting their own profiles. Here's a snippet from the CNN article:
Spread through fake status updates, users clicking on the malformed URL will be (unknowingly) infected. In turn, their own profiles will display the same fake status updates, infecting other users and continuing the cycle.
"What's particularly nasty," says Richard Paul, a senior analyst at F-Prot, "is that this virus preys on the trust of friends, on trusted contextual information."
Full article over at CNN: Facebook Virus, Thousands Infected
I find this sort of thing fascinating, in the way a horrible car wreck is fascinating. There are so many people on Facebook nowadays, I have a hard time imagining the numbers will remain only in the mere thousands. Trust me when I say: this isn't going to be pretty. I'll try to post updates here as I see them, throughout the day.
Keep an eye out for those fake status updates - and be wary about clicking on links from people you don't trust.
// Updated. More news outlets picking this up:
Facebook Virus No April Fool's Joke (Reuters)
RAstley Virus and Conflicker.c Worm: Double Whammy (Wired)
Fake Updates, Real Threats: The New Face of Facebook (AP)
April 1: Day of Fools (Ars Technica)
Never Gonna Make You Cry (BBC)
Never Gonna Say Goodbye (Business Week)
Never Gonna Tell a Lie and Hurt You (MSNBC)
I heard something about this on the radio - took a moment to change my FB password this morning. Thanks for helping to keep the internet clean!
Your headline font looks wrong. Details, details. :P
You're a downer, you know that? I'm calling you Deputy Downer from now on.
Nice try, champ.
Hey, you approved the comment, not me!
And oddly enough, my nickname in high school was Deputy for awhile, as my mother was a cop.
ummmm.... this has a virus linked to it. and i got the virus D