Facebook Messenger, a feature included within the popular social media network, has grown to become a widely-used platform for friends and loved ones to instantly communicate with one another. According to Kim Komando, over 1.2 billion people use Facebook Messenger today. And now cybercriminals are using it to communicate their latest phishing scheme to innocent users, as crooks are sending messages that are laced with FacexWorm malware via Facebook Messenger.
Aptly named, FacexWorm is a nasty strain that directs victims to fake versions of websites, such as YouTube, and then asks they download a Chrome extension in order to play a video’s content. No shocker here, but the extension is malicious, and actually installs FacexWorm instead, which can then steal account credentials from selected websites, including Google and cryptocurrency websites. What’s more, the malware variant can also hijack traffic from cryptocurrency trading platforms and steal funds, as well as crypto-jack a device by injecting malicious crypto-mining code on a webpage.