Flirtbot steals personal info from lonely hearts

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 10 Dec 2007 at 16:56

Cyber-criminals are using new software which mimics natural dialogue to prey on chatroom users and steal their personal information.

According to PC Tools, which identified the software, the flirtbot conducts flirtatious conversations with chatroom users, luring them into revealing personal details or visiting malware infested websites.

Apparently the flirtbot, called CyberLover, is capable of establishing relationships with up to 10 partners in only 30 minutes, with its victims unable to distinguish it from a human being.

"As a tool that can be used by hackers to conduct identity fraud, CyberLover demonstrates an unprecedented level of social engineering," says Sergei Shevchenko, Senior Malware Analyst at PC Tools.

"It employs highly intelligent and customised dialogue to target users of social networking systems. Internet users today are generally aware of the dangers of opening suspicious attachments and visiting unusual URLs, but CyberLover employs a new technique that is unheard of - and that's what makes it particularly dangerous."

"CyberLover has been designed as a bot [robot] that lures victims automatically, without human intervention. If it's spawned in multiple instances on multiple servers, the number of potential victims could be very substantial," says Shevchenko.

The company says the software is currently targeting Russian sites, however, it believes an English version is being developed.