Facebook malware is a real threat

In case anyone was in any doubt, hackers are using Facebook to spread spam and dangerous links to malicious websites.

We’ve discussed the threat before, but it is worth reiterating. And for me it was highlighted in a very personal way this week.

How? Well, a couple of days ago I received a group email at my personal Facebook account from an old acquaintance, cc’ing various other people.

Here’s a screenshot of what I saw. I’ve hidden some of the details to protect the innocent.

If you were tempted to click on the link you would be taken – after a couple of script redirections – to an all-too-familiar fake video page, pretending to be YouTube and offering a “secret video”. To view the video, the webpage tells you, you have to download a file called flash_update.exe which Sophos detects as the…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus industry having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, on Mastodon at @[email protected], or drop him an email.