Yesterday morning I had several invitations from friends to a new Facebook group “WE’RE AGAINST THE 4.99 A MONTH CHARGE FOR FACEBOOK FROM JUNE 30TH 2010″ in my inbox. Nowhere had I heard serious buzz that Facebook was planning to charge for usage and, as most of you know, I’m a little obsessed about current social media news. I popped onto Facebook and saw my news stream was filled with friends who’d joined this group. I had to go do my “real work” so didn’t have time to dig deeper but within an hour The Next Web had posted an article revealing the Facebook group to be a scam with a posted link that, when clicked, attempted to download 25 files to users’ hard drives.

I see the virus and scam warnings every day in my Twitter stream and realized that, just because this influx of scams is not news to me, it is obviously information some of my friends on Facebook do not have. I want to share some tips on how to keep your computer and personal information safe online by avoiding phishing scams and viruses.

Scammers and phishers are getting very good at figuring out ways to trick even the above-average Internet user. If people continue to just click “accept” or “yes” having a computer virus is going to become the norm rather than the exception. We need to start paying attention to what we accept online.

A VIRUS OR SCAM MIGHT BE DISGUISED AS:

• An e-mail, a wall post on Facebook, a mention or direct message on Twitter or other social media platform, even from a friend or known contact, that asks you to click a link after asking a question or challenging you to a quiz or claiming they found a video or picture of you on the Internet.
• A link from anywhere or anyone on the Internet that redirects you to a login page.
• A link from anywhere or anyone on the Internet that redirects you to a software update page.

Anyone can design a site to look like a familiar site. Anyone can buy a similar-yet-not-exact domain name (URL) in an attempt to mimic the real site. If the URL is a bit off, for example, ifacebook.com, myspace.cn or paypal-login.com, sunjavadwnld.com. These are probably not Facebook or PayPal, etc. and you will be giving your login credentials to or accepting a download from whomever created the site for the sole purpose of stealing your information or loading a virus onto your computer.

SURF SAFELY:

• Check that the URL, which is the address of the site (facebook.com, paypal.com, etc), matches where you think you are before entering your username or password.
• Don’t click suspicious links, even from friends, in e-mails, on Facebook, Twitter or other social media sites.
• Tell your contacts when you’ve received something from them you think may be suspicious. If they’ve been infected, they need to know.
• Don’t download application, software or add-on updates until you check the validity of the site you’re on. Better yet, open a new browser window, go to the official site (Flash from adobe.com, Quicktime from apple.com, etc.), check to see if you need an update and download it there.
• If you are still not 100% certain, ask for help. Send an e-mail to someone with some expertise. Google your question and see if you can find an answer. It’s better wait a few hours to see that purported video of yourself or download that browser add on than to have a virus.

Yep, what a hassle. Trust me, it’s a hell of a lot less hassle than removing Koobface or some other virus from your machine or having your Facebook or Twitter account taken over and sending spam messages with virus links in your name.

It’s time to pay attention because viruses are like stepping on a pile of dog doo, you can try to remove it but it’s never quite gone and the smell lingers.

About the Koobface virus at Wikipedia.

Surf safely!

Donna Winter

Project Development and Marketing Coordinator

Totera Web Systems

*originally posted 12/29/2009

This entry was posted on Monday, May 10th, 2010 at 11:30 am and is filed under Internet Safety. 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.