What’s your thing? Connecting with your Facebook friends or tweeting to your followers? Whether you’re a Twitter addict of a Facebook junkie, you must constantly be aware of the types of dangers socializing on these two networks poses, i.e. malware spreading, phishing and identity theft and more.
Given the proportions that the membership and awareness of these two social networks have reached, it’s no wonder that cybercriminals see them as a treasure trove of easy money, and exploit them with the use of malware. Their most frequent scams are clickjacking attacks on Facebook and creating spambots on Twitter, respectively.
Clickjacking malware
A clickjacking attack is a type of cyber-scam that aims at tricking you into clicking a seemingly harmless link. This is, in fact, a type of malware crafted to lead you to a web page and steal your personal details. It can also draw you into participating in concealed advertising campaigns, or any other action that brings cybercriminals lots of money.
The most common type of malware used for clickjacking is the worm going viral via Facebook’s “Like” feature. It usually appears on friends’ profile accompanied by a high number of likes, which makes it a trustworthy item to click on. The result? The same thing is posted on your profile. This threat has hit Facebook under various skins – from links to scandalous video content, to “exclusive” footage of the latest events.
Note that Facebook chat is also propitious for spreading such links.
Tweets carrying malware threats
Switching to the other social media giant, this kind of malicious links can also be spread throughout Twitter’s court via spambots – automated malware designed to assist in the sending of spam.
Cybercriminals cause these attacks by creating bogus Twitter accounts via which they start sending lots of tweets. Usually they are links to videos, pictures, even PC mending tools, which apparently are safe. Once you click on them, however, you go straight to a malicious site or your account starts sending the same tweet.
I fell for the scam. Now, what do I do?
If you ever fall victim to such scams, run a malware scanner immediately to spot the threats. With a top 3 malware detection rate in the internet security industry, BullGuard’s Antivirus could easily do the job. Then:
Check the recent activity on your news feed and delete entries related to pages that are external to Facebook. - Go to your Facebook profile, click on your Info tab and remove the pages from your "Likes and interests" section.
- If you’re a Twitter user, go to the spam account's profile page and “block” it. This way it won’t be able to follow you anymore or have its mentions show in your mentions tab.
How can I avoid such scams and computer malware infections?
It is always better to prevent any type of malware attacks. That’s why we strongly recommend you to:
- Be wary of any Facebook links containing words like “LOL!”, “OMG!” or “Amazing!”, as they most probably mask some kind of malware. If they are posted by your friends, then they might’ve fallen for a scam.
- Look at the link’s URL – if it’s a long catchy phrase connected by dashes, it’s best you don’t click on it.
- Have a look at the accounts following you on Twitter – if there’s one that follows you and thousands of other people and only posts affiliate links, it’s best to block it.
- Edit your profile’s settings, and keep it private. On Facebook you can “control how you connect with people you know”, and on Twitter, you can “protect your tweets” and allow only certain people to see your tweets.
- Get a comprehensive internet security suite installed on your PC that can easily spot, block and remove any type of malware. In this respect, BullGuard Internet Security is really the best “anti malware doctor removal tool” as it gathers the broadest line-up of internet security features, including firewall, antivirus and antiphishing.