A new threat to the Facebook users

Facebook, the social networking giant has acted against the spread of an all new computer worm. This worm has so far stolen about 45K login credentials. As per the computer security experts, the Ramnit worm is spreading since April 2010 and it has recently come to Facebook to target the details.

A computer worm and normal computer virus are different. The virus requires an already existing program to reproduce itself but the worm does not need one.

An Israeli based computer security firm, Seculert has alerted the social network recently of the new threat to it. As per their reports most of them who are affected by the worm are French and British. The firm mentioned that its research lab identified the all new Ramnit worm that focuses on stealing the login credentials of Facebook.

It has detected that the worm has already stolen over 45,000 login credentials of Facebook from across the world and this is mainly populated by the users in France and UK. Facebook gained knowledge on this new threat to the users only last week and it has taken the appropriate defensive measures.

The network analyzed the login details that were stolen and has come to a conclusion that most of them are out of date. Those who are affected will be asked to reset the passwords as a measure of improving the security.

Facebook has not seen the propagation of the virus so far and it has started working with the external partners in adding the necessary protections to the anti-virus systems thereby helping the users to be secured.