Blogs

16-May-2011 00:42

Have you suffered from a fake Facebook link?

In the last few months Facebook has become inundated with spammy, fake links promising to lead users through to ‘sites showing anything from how many active visitors you have > unreleased photos of Osama bin Laden's body > to how popular you really are on Social Media.

These viruses, if they can be considered viruses, are known within the industry as ‘clickjacking schemes’ & are spread virally by posting & reposting links to your contacts’ Facebook pages… & every time a link is clicked, the ‘virus’ and related spam is spread that much deeper...

These types of links often lead to malware, again viruses that are downloaded to a user's computer, and which help spread the links even further – according to Kevin Haley, director of Symantec Security Response.

Malware is responsible for ruinous attention to our computers including allowing access to our personal information, logins and passwords.

Facebook reportedly has said that, “it’s working hard to cut down on these dangerous links.”

Facebook spokesman Fred Wolens adds, “we’ve shut down all these pages as soon as we detect them or they're reported to us."

How can we stop this growing problem?

Well, the simplest answers are firstly, to set up an up-to-date virus programme on your computer with ongoing software updates, and secondly, if in doubt… don’t open the link...

Be responsible out there :)

Norman

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Comments
Contributed by Georgina Lester on 16-May-2011 19:39
They seem to be particularly rife at the moment.
I keep deleting them but always after Reporting them as abuse and a scam.

There are some that don't seem to require any action on your part for it to do things - no idea how that works. Others will need you to click on a link which triggers a whole series of actions including posing as YOU and posting on all of your friends walls. Then there are some which require you to copy and paste a script into the browser address bar which then opens up all sorts of things. One person I know did as was requested - tempted by the chance of winning an iPad and it started to send her text messages which if she stayed subscribed would have cost her something in the region of £4.50 per alert. SCAM!!

It seems that my account got hacked yesterday and it posted on LOTS of friends walls. I spent all three hours night going through friend's profiles to remove the offending objects. Admittedly whilst enjoying a rare treat of watching a film with my daughter - but as I have over 920 connections on facebook I did only get as far as the D's before I gave up.

They are VERY clever in the way that they have written the messages - a few of my friends were duped and I am not surprised either - they were very convincing.

Defintiely beware.
Contributed by Rob Mead on 16-May-2011 19:38

Had two emails of this sort in the last week - one was about who was visiting my profile and the other was about seeing footage of the Osama raid...
Not sure either actually interests me anyway...
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