Justin Bieber Naked: The Modern Malware

A few years ago parents of teenage girls only had to worry about school grades and schoolboys. In the internet age, it’s digital threats, not boyfriends, which can follow an adolescent into her bedroom. And this week, it’s Justin Bieber who’s causing the problem.

It’s not his catchy tunes or garish dress-sense that’s hurting teenagers. It’s actually criminals posting fake links concerning the star, promising anything from pictures of him naked to videos of him fighting the press.

The links, which circulate freely on Twitter and Facebook, aren’t actually anything to do with the Canadian teen, however. Their real purpose is to secretly download malware to your teen’s computer.

The most recent malware to use this technique was called LilyJade, a worm that overrides ads on Yahoo, YouTube, Bing, MSN, AOL, Google and Facebook to serve up its own advertisements.

It was actually quite sophisticated piece of software, working cross-browser on Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Firefox. I know some web companies that would benefit from coding that intelligent!

Aside from Lilyjade, Mr. Bieber isn’t the only victim of internet slander. One Direction have also been spoofed in the name of viruses sharing, while other malware encourages teens to click a link to “check out this terrible picture of you!” – unsurprisingly, it’s another piece of malware.

The real problem is that every day more and more members of a web-literate generation come online. And while they may know a lot about how to digitally communicate with their friends, they’re less sure of how to keep their computers safe.

We’d recommend talking to your teens about the dangers of too-good-to-be-true (or too-gross-to-be-true, if you’re talking about a butt-naked Bieber) internet links, and also read our Security Superhero Snorre Fagerland’s recent interview on Facebook safety.