Facebook Watcher

Facebook spam is definitely on the rise, but the good side is that the official security page of Facebook, i.e. Facebook Security has provided the typical screenshots of the spam posts and messages for the users to be fully aware of.

Please pay careful attention to these pictures enclosed as below, so when you come across the similar message, don’t hesitate to delete it straight away from your message inbox. And also, notice that each of these messages, the content are weird, with bad grammar as well, all under the guise of amicable types of messages with an aim to entice users to click on the external URL links.

Spam Message Example 1:

*Spam message for a free Macy’s gift card

Spam Message Example 2:

*Spam message about a new video the sender has found

Spam Message Example 3:

Spam Message Example 4:

Source: available at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=58084&id=31987371885, accessed 31 October 2008

New Facebook attack are once again in the news, this time was discovered by Unified Threat Management vendor Fortinet. In particular, this security warning came from Fortinet, in a FortiGuard Advisory (FGA-2008-26), said that Facebook users who click on the URL links found in their message inbox in order to watch video, and the URL links which point to a Google Reader shared items site or Google Picasa site, may be at big risk for an attack.

This is mainly because for the Facebook users to view video on this Google Reader or Picasa site, they are prompted to install a special codec which contains Trojan. The codec itself is nothing but a Trojan, will load various malware pieces, as well as a copy of worm.

Although it’s not clear what impact this Trojan has on your system at this point, whether the anti-virus program installed is capable in protecting your system. However, Facebook users are advised not to download any codec when they’re social networking in Facebook.

[via PC World]

I am a big fan of Facebook, and believed that it will not close users’ accounts simply because it is overpopulated. To strengthening your belief in Facebook, you need to subscribe to this Facebook Security page. All those chain letters are hoax. We know Facebook will fix it, just like they fixed the worm attack recently. Meanwhile, you can join and donate to this cause, i.e. Stop Facebook Chain Letters if you want to.

MySpace gets a bad rap for spam profiles, while many believe that Facebook is relatively secure. But, are they really right? According to Facebook’s newest post, security chief Max Kelly has stated that a new worm is currently attacking Facebook.

“We spent most of last night working on a fix for a worm, which was targeting people on Facebook and placing messages on Walls urging users to view a video that pretends to be hosted on a Google or YouTube website. We’ve identified and blocked the ability to link to the malicious websites from anywhere on Facebook. Less than .002 percent of people on Facebook have been affected, all of whom we notified and suggested steps to remove the malware.”

In matter of fact, this worm has been widely reported in the virus new forums, as one of the well-established Internet security firms Kaspersky even purposely wrote an article to inform social networking users on such security vulnerability a week ago. This worm namely Net-Worm.Win32.Koobface.b, which targets Facebook users, creates spam messages to the Facebook users and its ultimate purpose is to urge the users to download a network worm that could potentially cause a huge loss to the users’ own machines .

With that so many features rendered by Facebook platform, and every complex piece of code probably has some vulnerability in it, it is wisely to listen to Facebook’s serious advice in their blog post. There are few important security measures that each one of us must take: report any spam message postings, never share your Facebook password, keep an eye and prioritize all the security flaw of your own computer’s operating system, and the last one, be aware of your surroundings in your online community.