Bom Sabado flooding on Orkut

On Orkut, you might have noticed something fishy going on over the past few hours. A large number of users are randomly flooding their friend’s scrapbooks (Orkut’s equivalent of Facebook Wall) with the following message:

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the “Bom Sabado!” messages are automatically generated by a script. However, it is not clear if this is simply a script exploiting a vulnerability in Orkut, or have the accounts sending the automated scraps have been compromised.

If you are amongst those affected, it’s highly recommended that you follow the steps highlighted below:

• Switch to the “older version” of Orkut.
• Log out of Orkut.
• Clean your browser’s cache
  
  
  and cookies.
• Log in and change your password and security question.

If you haven’t been affected yet, it is strongly advised that you avoid Orkut until the issue has been resolved. I managed to trigger the same exploit while researching this article. Recently other high-profile websites like Twitter and YouTube also fell victim to XSS attacks.

The worm appears to have originated in Brazil, where Orkut is still exceptionally popular. Many of the affected users are noticing the Brazilian flag on their status messages. Additionally, the word ‘Bom Sabado’ means ‘Good Saturday’ in Portuguese, which is the official language of Brazil.

Note: You can delete these scraps by visiting m.orkut.com via google chrome as scripts don't work on m.orkut.com plz be quick and don't let those bugs spread.

Possible Solutions and precaution

Follow these steps:

1. Immediately change your password and security question{ including secondary email and  number if they also got changed.) This will solve the problem.
2. Find out whether some communities have been joined automatically. if yeah, do remove them.
3. If your account has been completely hacked, see here: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/orkut/thread?tid=39fa418ed1162078&hl=en
4. Always remember these  :
   
   1. Do not ever log in to any site rather than www.orkut.com
   2. Do not ever run any JavaScript while logged into your Orkut account
   3. Never use any flooder in your account
   4. Don't ever share your password with anyone else and keep changing your password regularly.
   5. Don't click on the suspicious link while logged into Orkut a/c. if you are curious you can copy the link and check them in another browser after cleaning its browser’s cookie and cache.
   6. Don't run any suspicious script on greasemoneky and ALWAYS DISABLE THE GM before logging in to Orkut.
   7. Do your mobile verification also, so that you can get back your a/c if a hacker doesn’t change the mobile number there. http://www.orkut.co.in/Main#MobileSetupSettings
   8. Use a good Antivirus and Anti Key logger and keep your system free from Key loggers and backdoor trojans.
   9. Use Virtual Keyboard to your password for more security. KIS 2010 provides it and there are many other V. keyboards available.

Take a look here and follow the points given to protect your a/c:

http://www.google.com/support/orkut/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=57442

and http://www.google.com/support/orkut/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=48579