Social Networks´ XSS Worms

Cross Site Scripting Worms, are malicious programs that propagates through visitors of a website in attempt to infect other visitors progressively. Cross site scripting vulnerabilities are exploited in many forms; one of the common forms is using worms on popular social websites, such as MySpace and Facebook. In this paper first we suggest a general model based on our discussions. Then we simulate the propagation of a sample worm in a virtual social network to see if the model conforms to simulated propagation. We also examined some parameters effects such as the probability of visiting friends that could affect worm propagation. The simulation results leads to a better understanding and prediction of the scale and speed of propagation of cross site scripting worms on web 2.0 social networks.