Support the fact-based journalism you rely on with a donation to Marketplace today. Give Now!
Codebreaker

Koobface gets a gas face

Marc Sanchez Jan 19, 2012

I think it’s totally appropriate to reference 80’s hip-hop sensation 3rd Bass, when bringing up Russian, Internet gangsters, Koobface. Not only does everything rhyme – Koobface/gas face/3rd Bass – but it’s exactly the kind of gesture we can all take part in when video chatting with the gang, as their identities were exposed earlier this week. And now that they’re names and faces are out there, the spammy malware that has clogged Facebook news feeds around the world has dramatically slowed. Naked Security reports: “Although social networking accounts have been wiped, security researchers and law enforcement agencies have archives of the vast amount of material already published by Koobface gang members, including photographs, movies, and locations as they checked into sites such as FourSquare.” Koobface has been terrorizing Facebook news feeds for years, posing as your friends and posting links to sensational articles, which turn out to be spammy junk sites from which Koobface gets kickbacks. It only took 24 hours from the time Facebook’s security team decided to go public with the gang’s whereabouts for their servers to go silent. And right now, the sound of a silent server is music to my ears.

There’s a lot happening in the world.  Through it all, Marketplace is here for you. 

You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible. 

Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.