So you think you’ve found Mr. or Ms. Right online in, of all places, a chatroom. Beware! A Russian company has just come up with software that can simulate online flirting, genuinely fooling people into thinking they’re making overtures to a real person.

In a Reuters story, Australian anti-virus company PC Tools warns of the risk CyberLover.ru’s chatroom mimic poses to gullible chatters.

"As a tool that can be used by hackers to conduct identity fraud, CyberLover demonstrates an unprecedented level of social engineering," Sergei Shevchenko, Senior Malware Analyst at PC Tools, said in the Reuters piece.

The website goes so far as to boast "Not a single girl has yet realized that she was communicating with a program!" CyberLover even claims that the software can even stimulate cybersex convincingly.

Speaking of convincing social engineering, this is disturbingly similar to the recent MSN Messenger virus that masquerades as the PC’s owner, asking other users to ‘check out an image’ for them. 

When social engineering has become this sophisticated, what sort of tests will we need to run to make sure the person we interact with visually is the real deal. Well, you heard this here first: webcam-makers are going to make a killing.

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Entry was posted on Thursday, December 13th, 2007 at 9:48 am under Security, Software.

Read more entries by Erna Mahyuni.
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