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YouTube Virus Turns Out to be False Alarm

by Terrence O'Brien on December 5, 2008 at 10:22 AM

YouTube Virus Turns Out to be False Alarm
Rumors are flying that YouTube is infecting unsuspecting computer users with a computer virus. Before we go any further, let us just calm your fears -- it's not true. But that doesn't mean it's safe to let down your guard.

It turns out that out-of-date antivirus programs are erroneously labeling clips on YouTube as containing Actns/Swif.T, a particularly nasty piece of malware that urges you to install a software package called Antivirus 2009. Of course, Antivirus 2009 is a piece of spyware, and a notoriously difficult one to remove at that.

Since YouTube generates its own Flash code for playing back videos, it is unlikely that it would host malicious code. Even so, Flash has proven to be quite insecure (as we're sure you've learned from the piles of crap installed on your computer via MySpace pages).

So keep your guard up, and that security software up-to-date. [From: ValleyWag]

Tags: antivirus, breaking news, BreakingNews, security, spyware, video, virus, web, web video, WebVideo, youtube

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