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Latest Dorkbot Malware Spread Via Facebook Chat
A new variant of Dorkbot made the rounds of Facebook this week, infecting users as it hopped from one friend to another over the site's chat service, researchers said.
The latest Dorkbot variant infected users by including a link to an image file in a Facebook chat session, BitDefender researchers wrote in a blog post. The file had a .JPG extension but was really an executable file. Researchers believe the malware, when executed, could spy on users' browsing activities, download additional malware, and harvest user passwords.
"The kicker here is that a Facebook user can receive a chat/IM from an (infected) friend and not know it is the spambot trying to engage in conversation," BitDefender told SecurityWatch.
Facebook appears to have removed the infection as of Tuesday. Dorkbot and its variants have been around since 2003, although the last known version was in 2011. That particular malware strain spread through instant messaging clients, including Yahoo Messenger, Pidgin, and XChat. This Facebook variant appears to be an update of the 2011 version.
Report: Facebook Home Quietly Rolls Out to Galaxy S4, HTC One
Facebook Home just topped 1 million downloads, a number that will likely increase with the recent launch of the mobile social network experience on two more devices.
Android Central reported this week that Facebook quietly added unofficial Facebook Home support for the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S 4.
Facebook Home was made available on April 12 for owners of the HTC One X, HTC One X+, Samsung Galaxy S III, and Samsung Galaxy Note II, while the HTC First was released with the app pre-loaded. At the time, Facebook said the interface would be made available for the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S 4 at some point after they were released in late April, but Home has not yet been officially released for those smartphones.
That's apparently about to change. When Android Central updated the standalone Facebook app (not the Facebook Home app) on the Galaxy S 4, the smartphone displayed a message offering up Facebook Home. "Your device is not supported yet, so you may not get the best experience if you use Home now," the message said, but provided the option to "Use Home Anyway" or cancel. Selecting Home access launched the app as it would on any officially supported phone, Android Central said, adding that it got the same message on the Sony Xperia ZL.
Meanwhile, the blog said the HTC One ran Facebook Home without the warning message, but Android Central did not elaborate about how it made its way to Facebook Home on the smartphone.
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but confirmed to TechCrunch that the apps have been released for the Galaxy S 4 and HTC One.
Comment on Facebook Directly From Bing
Bing is about to get a little more social.
Microsoft on Friday announced that it has more tightly integrated its search engine with Facebook to let users interact with friends' posts directly from the right-hand social sidebar. Launched last year, the Bing social sidebar displays content from Facebook and Twitter that is relevant to a user's query.
Thanks to the new integration, users who have connected their Facebook accounts to Bing will now be able to comment and like friends' relevant status updates directly from the search page.
The new feature works like this: If you're searching Bing for concert tickets, for instance, you might see a post from a Facebook friend saying that they are going to the show. Without leaving the Bing search results page, you'll be able to comment directly on that person's post saying you're thinking of going as well.
"If you're like us, it's hard to keep up with what friends are posting on an ongoing basis, and harder still to search and find specific topics that your friends may have posted about," Bing program manager Nektarios Ioannides wrote in a blog post Friday. "By bringing together Bing and Facebook, you have an easy way to complement your search with helpful, interesting or insightful content your friends have shared."
Facebook Home Tops 1M Downloads as Update Rolls Out
Facebook Home officially reached the 1 million download mark today, and in celebration of the milestone, Facebook is rolling out new updates for the mobile app.
For those running the official application, today's update will provide only bug fixes, but the company will push out several more improvements over the coming weeks. Those include a more seamless Chat Heads function, a new full-screen interface for apps accessible with a single swipe, sub-folders within the app dock, and pop ups to help educate users and make Home less confusing to operate, VentureBeat reported.
According to The Next Web, Facebook will roll out Home updates every four weeks.
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The social network's new mobile experience for Android smartphones launched in early April, and garnered 500,000 downloads in its first 10 days.
Fortune 500: Apple Cracks Top 10, Facebook Makes Debut
Apple landed at No. 6 on this year's Fortune 500 list, the only tech company to crack the top 10.
Facebook, meanwhile, made its first appearance on the top 500.
Apple was at No. 17 in 2012, and its entrance into the top 10 proves that it's "bigger than ever,"Fortune said, despite some setbacks.
"At Apple's press event this past October, it maintained more than disrupted with its software upgrades and iPad mini announcement," the magazine said. "Also, this past year has seen a lot of CEO Tim Cook having to apologize," from the Apple Maps to warranty issues in China.
"Still, when every executive wants to invent the iPod of [insert company name], Apple remains an innovative icon," Forbes concluded.
Cupertino's real story is its profits, according to Fortune managing editor Leigh Gallagher, who told CBS This Morning that had the list been based on profits instead of revenues, Apple would have landed in the No. 2 spot, behind Exxon.
Meanwhile, Zuckerberg and Co. earned a spot in the top 500, though just barely, squeaking in at number 482. Of the CEOs heading up the companies on the Forbes 500, however, Zuckerberg is the youngest, according to Gallagher.
"This company rocketed onto the list, I think as fast as Google did, and Google was previously the fastest company to make the Fortune 500," she told CBS. "In the tech world, innovation happens a lot quicker. Years ago, it would have taken decades."
Facebook ‘Trusted Contacts’ Lets Friends Help You Recover Your Account
Facebook today launched Trusted Contacts, which lets Facebook users provide friends with a virtual spare key, in case of emergency.
The new Trusted Contacts is a redesigned and improved version of Trusted Friends, which rolled out in 2011 and called on friends if a user had trouble logging in to the social network.
Now with more control over account security, Trusted Contacts allows users to choose and manage said friends from the Security Settings, instead of only when having trouble accessing an account.
"That way, you can personally choose friends you really trust to help you," the Facebook Security team wrote in a blog post.
The company considers "trusted contacts" to be people you'd give a spare house key to and someone you can reach out to without using Facebook. Users can select three to five people to be listed.
Can't log into your account? Just call three of your trusty friends, and let them know you need help regaining access to your news feed and birthday reminders. Each one will get a security code with instructions on how to help, and only once you have all three codes can you recover your account.
Facebook Sees Mobile Boost, Talks Instagram Growth
Facebook continued to see gains from mobile during the quarter, and now boasts 751 mobile million monthly active users, a 54 percent increase from the same time period last year.
Revenue for the first quarter came in at $1.46 billion, up 38 percent from the same time period last year, but down from $1.585 billion in the fourth quarter. Income landed at $219 million.
Advertising revenue was $1.25 billion, or 85 percent of total revenue. Of that, 30 percent came from mobile advertising, which is up from 23 percent in the last quarter.
During a call with analysts, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg said the firm has seen success with the mobile app installs added to users' news feeds. During the quarter, 3,800 developers used those ads to drive 25 million app downloads, he said. Of the top 100 apps in the iOS and Android stores, 40 percent of them used Facebook's mobile app install ads.
Also on mobile, Zuckerberg talked up Facebook Home as an "important milestone," though he stressed that it's "still very early." At this point, the company hasn't really made a huge push for people to install Home, in part because of its limited availability. But in the coming year, Facebook hopes to "push this out much more broadly and get this in the hands of a lot more people," he said.
Facebook Home Tops 500,000 Downloads
Facebook Home hit the Google Play on April 12, and has already garnered more than 500,000 downloads.
Mobile analyst Ben Evans noted the milestone on Sunday, tweeting that the new "Android experience" had surpassed 500,000 downloads on Google Play.
According to the online market's install graph, the application has been downloaded between 500,000 and 1 million times, though specific numbers are not available. The number may not seem too impressive, though, once stacked up against an application like Instagram, which, within 24 hours of reaching the Android platform, saw more than 1 million downloads.
Facebook Home, however, reaches a much smaller audience; the new feature is available only on certain devices, including the Samsung Galaxy S III, Samsung Galaxy Note II, HTC One X, HTC One X+, and HTC First, which comes pre-loaded with the application.
The social network's new mobile experience was unveiled earlier this month, amidst speculation of a "Facebook phone." Home remakes the Android experience into an interactive Facebook feed, where users can skim through their feed, find notifications, and access content from their home screen.
Facebook Home Now Available in Google Play Store
Facebook Home, the social network's new more-than-just-an-app, which turns select smartphones into almost Facebook phones, is now available in the Google Play store for free download.
Facebook Home, revealed earlier this month, was made available Friday for owners of the HTC One X, HTC One X+, Samsung Galaxy S III, and Samsung Galaxy Note II. The new $99.99 HTC First smartphone, also released Friday, comes preloaded with Facebook Home, while the interface will be made available for the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 at a future date, Facebook said.
Owners of other Android phones will have to wait until Facebook releases Home for their phones. Tablets running Google's mobile operating system will also get access to Facebook Home at some point, the company said.
The best news for early adopters? Facebook Home doesn't have ads and won't for at least several months, according to the company.
The Home "experience," as the company bills it, comes up short of turning a handset into the full-fledged "Facebook phone" some people anticipated was being developed ahead of Facebook Home's unveiling. It's not a new mobile operating system or even a fork of Android, but it's also quite a bit more than another innocuous button to add to your phone's app launcher.
What it does is serve up Facebook, and lots of it, to devices from the moment they're turned on. Facebook Home first and foremost lives on a phone's lockscreen, delivering a stripped-down, tailored version of a user's News Feed, complete with alerts and the ability to comment on and like items as they dribble in across the touch screen.
Facebook Serving Up Ads Based on User Purchases
Facebook today expanded its advertising platform to allow for ads based on your purchase history across desktop and mobile.
The program, dubbed "partner categories," is intended to allow advertising partners to target more people than before, Facebook said.
"To date, advertisers have been able to show ads to people based on their expressed interests on Facebook," according to the social network. "Now with partner categories, they can also show ads to people on Facebook based on the products and brands they buy across both desktop and mobile."
According to Facebook, the new system might allow a local car dealership to show ads to people who live nearby and are in the market for a new car, based on data collected by third parties like Acxiom, Datalogix, and Epsilon.
No personal information is shared between Facebook, third-party companies, or advertisers, the company promised. Partner categories works similarly to all Facebook targeting — the advertiser knows only the size of the audience, and can't access any information about individuals included in a category.
"Companies have long used this type of targeting off of Facebook, and we are excited to make this available to advertisers of all sizes," Facebook said.
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