Orkut worm demonstrates vulnerability of service

Google's Orkut social networking site appeared to have been hit by a relatively harmless worm, but one that demonstrated the continuing vulnerability of Web applications.

Some Orkut users received an e-mail telling them they had been sent a new scrapbook entry -- a type of Orkut message -- on their profile from another Orkut user.

They only had to view their profile to become infected by the worm, which added them to an Orkut group, "Infectados pelo Vi­rus do Orkut," wrote the blogger Kee Hinckley on his site TechnoSocial.

The name of the group, in Portuguese, roughly translates to "infected by the Orkut virus." Orkut is popular in Brazil, as well as India, but has not caught on as well outside those countries compared to MySpace and Facebook.