Beware of Google+ security threats

With over three million Indian users on Google+, the site is fast becoming the new rage with the social networking crowd. However, Beware! Security solutions provider, Kaspersky Lab has warned Internet users of targeted attacks on the social networking site.

Even Experian data suggest that social media in India reaches out to 60 per cent of the online Indian audience and with Google+ still in its beta phase it is fast becoming a hunting ground for cybercriminals.

Fabio Assolini, malware researcher, Global Research and Analysis Team at Kaspersky Lab says: “Kaspersky Labs have identified Brazilian cybercriminals who have already started sending fake invites (to open Goggle+ accounts) with malicious links pointing to malware, specifically Trojan bankers."

The fake invites contain infected links that redirect the user to a very common Brazilian Trojan banker file hosted at Dropbox (file sharing site). The most interesting thing to note in this message, however, is another link pointing to a form hosted at Google Docs, a free online Office suite.

The message shows the link as “send the invitation to your friends” but it is actually a fake form created to collect names and e-mail addresses of new victims. Kaspersky Lab has reported this malicious file and the fake web form to Google.

Within weeks of the launch, Google+ has reached about 20 million users, according to ComScore data. While Google+, say company executives, is still being tested with a closed group of users, some of its built-in features like Circles (where user segregates friends and followers) have serious privacy flaws.

“One of the main features of Google+ is Circles, the possibility to easily share the right content with the right people. However, once the content has been shared to a Circle, anyone can share it by default to other Circles. It boils down to the fact that the tagging feature can be bypassed by using the reshare option," says George Lucian Petre of security software provider BitDefender.

“Let’s say user “A” shares a picture only with their “Close Friends” circle, and disables resharing. All it takes is for someone from that “Close friend” circle to tag a person from outside this circle in the picture. Once this has been done, that person can share the picture with anyone, in any way." read more