Hello, all. It’s been a while, but the Security Watch blog is now back in action this week, and right on que reports of a new scam spreading virally on Facebook have surfaced.
According to Sophos, the scam uses subject lines like this one: ‘I just got the Dislike button, so now I can dislike all of your dumb posts lol!!’
The message is followed by a shortened link, which if clicked on offers to provide users with a ‘Dislike’ button to counter the ‘Like’ buttons on Facebook that users have all come to know. Choosing to install the application of course gives users more than they bargained for.
“If you do give the app permission to run, it silently updates your Facebook status to promote the link that tricked you in the first place, thus spreading the message virally to your Facebook friends and online contacts,” blogged Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. “But you still haven’t at this point been given a “Dislike” Facebook button, and the rogue application requires you to complete an online survey (which makes money for the scammers) before ultimately pointing you to a Firefox browser add-on for a Facebook dislike button developed by FaceMod.”
FaceMod is not believed to be involved in the scam, Cluley added.
To learn more about what Facebook is doing to address security, read here.