Microsoft helps keep Koobface virus off Facebook
Microsoft is working with Facebook to keep the persistent Koobface virus off the popular social networking site, the companies said on Thursday. — “In working with Facebook, we were able to add detection of Koobface …
Context & Ripple Effects
A month after TrendLabs flagged a new Koobface worm variant spreading on Facebook, the response has arrived at the platform layer rather than the endpoint: Microsoft says its detection for the virus is now being applied inside Facebook itself, per a confirmed arrangement announced Thursday. The pairing matters because Koobface's whole trick is social propagation — luring friends of infected users to click — which means cleanup has to happen where the links are shared.
It also extends an existing commercial relationship: Microsoft had already invested in Facebook in 2007 and supplies ad technology to the site, so adding threat detection deepens a partnership both sides have reason to advertise.
First-order effects
- Facebook users get Koobface links flagged by Microsoft's detection before they spread further through friend networks, shifting the burden of defense off individual users' own antivirus installs.
- Koobface operators lose their most effective distribution channel on the largest US social network, forcing them toward new variants or other platforms to keep infection rates up.
Second-order effects
- Rival social networks face the same pressure to sign detection partnerships of their own, since a visible malware outbreak becomes a trust problem that costs users and advertisers.
- Antivirus vendors gain a template for selling protection as a service embedded in web platforms rather than only as desktop software, opening a new licensing market.
Third-order effects
- If the model holds, social network security consolidates around a handful of large engine providers whose signatures run inside the platforms themselves, marginalizing consumer tools that only see infections after download.
- Platform-vendor security deals also normalize the sharing of user activity data between sites like Facebook and companies like Microsoft, setting up the privacy trade-offs regulators would eventually have to adjudicate.
The trend: Malware defense is moving upstream from the PC into the social platforms where malicious links propagate, via detection partnerships between antivirus-capable software giants and the networks themselves.