Virus Distribution by Means of Social Media (A reflection on the state of society)

[Fel]

One of the main reasons you don't see that many viruses out in the wild is due to lack of effective distribution systems. Adverts are generally blocked, or done in-shop to maximize profits, email is scanned repeatedly and filtered out before it even reaches you, trusted distributors maintain their trust by verifying files are clean before allowing users to download them. The problem isn't making a virus, just take a look at all the security updates you routinely download each week, the problem is getting a wide enough distribution before it gets shut down.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/126288-Strange-iPhone-behaviour

This brings up something very dangerous though... here is a fact for all of you poorly informed computer security n00bs: Unless you've attached a debugger to the process and monitored the actions performed, you have no idea what it does. No ifs, no "but I read", this is computer security fact, you cannot say something is innocuous until you've examined all possible cases and determined it to be so, especially if it performs an action that is not intended.

Now, regardless of whether this instance is benign it brings up a more interesting point in that social media is a perfect distribution vector for a virus.

I know moderation may have issues here, but just reading about how willingly people spread that code around without asking "does it do anything else" is the point I wish to make... what if it did? What if it used higher permissions to make a backdoor and now millions of phones are now infected? How do you actually, truly, know? Did you look at the source code? Did you do anything except say "haha, other people are doing it, so I'll do it too!"?

Let's talk about something else for a bit too, in that windows xp had a strange... intent... in image rendering that allowed images to execute binary code (also known as MICE or metafile image code execution.) This was long patched but it was a vulnerability exploited often on 4chan boards to distribute trojans. Imagine now, with sites like imgur, uploading a picture with something interesting (like this http://i.imgur.com/dNhrL.png ;p)... before even looking up what it does to pose a retort, how often do people bother to ask 'could this be doing something malicious and using this effect as a means to get people to distribute it'?

Taking advantage of how willingly people would distribute a virus that did something "interesting" while hiding its true intent seems like something worth noting the next time you think of following the crowd.

[mythbusters844]

Woah, this is freaky...and interesting.

[Bill Phil]

Interesting...

But it would need enough people to click on it or download it. That may not be the case.

[Flymetothemun]

Now, regardless of whether this instance is benign it brings up a more interesting point in that social media is a perfect distribution vector for a virus.

I'm not surprised. Just look at rumors and gossip in a town or bar. They spread like wildfire, even quicker than viruses, and they harm whoever catches wind of them by giving them false or exaggerated ideas about somebody who might be an upstanding citizen.

[RainDreamer]

Memes are frigging mind virus already, and they thrived on social media. No surprise that an actual computer virus can spread on the same vector.

[FleshJeb]

Neat.

Explained: http://superuser.com/questions/579216/why-does-this-png-image-display-differently-in-chrome-firefox-than-in-safari-a

IE is fixed, not sure about Safari.