Awww, facebook. North America’s favourite time waster. Or was that television? I can’t remember now… In any event, millions of people login to facebook everyday to connect with friends, checkout the latest vacation photos, or coordinate Saturday night party plans. If you’re not familiar with facebook, or don’t use facebook, thats OK. Facebook is a social networking website that has become immensely popular over the years. It has appealed to adults and kids alike as a convenient way to keep in touch, post pictures, and find lost friends. Users beware though. Facebook gives you a very strong, easily accessible online presence. Also, many computers are getting infected due to facebook scams. Learn more below to avoid becoming a victim…

You may receive a fraudulent email from a source claiming to be from Facebook themselves. Then they will ask you to update your facebook information to help improve the websites information accuracy.

You may receive a link on your wall about shocking pictures that somebody has posted about you. You may be prompted to click on the link to check out the photos.

You may see advertisements that seem legit, and prompt you to visit for more information.

In all 3 cases, be very careful what you do. Approach the situation with caution, and only click if you are certain that there is nothing fishy going on. If you have your doubts, or are not sure, the best bet is to just delete / ignore.

TIP: Hover your mouse over any potential links. You will see the destination URL down in the status bar. This will tell you where you will end up if you click on that link. Verify that the link does in fact begin with “http://www.facebook.com” Check to make sure that there are no extra characters slipped in such as “http://www.facebookl.com” Hardly noticed that extra “L” after the “K” huh? Well, that small change is the difference between the official Facebook website, and a totally different, possibly malicious website that is just waiting to prey on unsuspecting visitors. Hover your mouse over any link on the internet and you will get a preview of the destination URL at the bottom in the status bar… Good to know!

So the morale of the story? Be very careful what you post on facebook. No matter what you’ve heard, the truth is, it is all very accessible by the public. Be careful what information you give out, and only click on a link if you are confident that the destination is legit. Use the mouse hover technique to help you figure this out, along with your instinct. If something seems fishy, it ususally is. Happy Facebooking!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 at 1:08 pm and is filed under Malware. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.