ID Theft Safety on Facebook

When we find useful information, we like to share it. This week’s blog is excerpted from the Identity Theft Resource Center and written by the Social Media Coordinator Nikki Junker. The scam is based on that much loved “like” on Facebook. It’s the way users showed they supported anything from a bagel shop to the fact that their aunt just bought a new car. Then with the invention of the “like” came the burning desire of users to be able to dislike something. Thus the mythical “dislike” button was born. There were so many questions and rumors surrounding whether or not Facebook would allow users to express their discontent for their friends’ relationship status change from “in a relationship” to “single”.

Scammers caught on to this interest in a dislike button recently and have begun using the promise of the “dislike” button to spread malware via Javascript code. What does this mean? It means you see a post by “your friend” (your friend being an account of someone you know who has already been hacked) about how to get the “dislike” button. You click on this post and are asked to copy and paste a link into your URL address bar (the box at the top of the page where you type the web address). Just like that you have invited hackers right into your computer to do whatever they please. They may take personal information, install a keylogger to see everything you type or any number of other nasty things.
You should always be careful about any link you click on and Facebook’s security has done a good job of cutting down on scams. However, you can be extra sure that if you click on anything regarding the “dislike” button you are in for a nasty surprise.

For more information on how to protect yourself visit www.hvshred.com

by Judith