And Facebook is growing rapidly in that part of the world with a population of about 400-500 million people: 29 percent growth in 2012, according to a new infographic from Socialbakers.

The “Arab Spring” popular uprisings in 2011 and 2012 contributed to that growth, according to Socialbakers — particularly in the most politically active countries, Qatar, Libya, and Iraq. Those three countries’s Facebook user numbers have soared in 2012, 115 percent, 86 percent, and 81 percent respectively. Facebook, along with YouTube and Twitter, helped protesters organize and collaborate during the popular uprisings in those countries.

Egypt, the most populous country in the region, grew the most by absolute measures, adding 2.5 million Facebook users.

It’s not profitable growth, at least not comparatively, and not yet: Facebook users in MENA countries are some of the least valuable users as far as advertisers are concerned. But that will likely change over time.

One oddity that I noticed in the infographic: Israel is missing from the map. In a variety of sources that I checked, Israel is included in the MENA countries in some cases but not all. It does seem strange, however, that Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon are shown on the map, but Israel is not.

Here’s all the data, in visual form.

photo credit: jonrawlinson via photopin cc

Researchers at security firms Kaspersky Lab and Crysys Lab released tools today to detect if your computer is infected by the Gauss virus, a piece of malware that focuses on stealing bank account login credentials.

Gauss was discovered yesterday by Kaspersky Lab, and its function is to steal access credentials to Lebanese banks. These include the Bank of Beirut, BlomBank, EBLF, ByblosBank, Credit Libanais, and FransaBank. It also steals information for Citibank and PayPal. On top of that, the malware grabs browser history, cookies, passwords, system configurations, and more. Researchers have not been able to get much information about the builders themselves, as the command and control servers were shut down, leaving the malware in limbo.

Gauss is related to a number of high-profile viruses including Stuxnet, which became famous after attacking nuclear plants in Iran in 2010, and its sister malware, Duqu. It is also related to the recently infamous Flame, which has been referred to as a major advancement in cyberespionage.

Gauss and Flame are closer together in relation. Kaspersky says the two share nearly identical features and were built off of the same code base. The firm says Stuxnet’s creators probably worked closely with those of Gauss and may have even shared source code.

Find the Kaspersky detector here and the Crysys detector here.

via The New York Times; Image via Shutterstock

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