Monday, May 16, 2011

Fake "Dislike" Button Scams Facebook



If any of you guys has seen a post from a friend claiming that Facebook has a "Dislike" button, DON'T CLICK ON THE LINK!

A new scam is making its way around Facebook in the form of a "Dislike" button. Researchers at the security firm Sophos first detected the scam over the weekend, when messages offering a dislike button began emerging on Facebook users' walls. The message reads: "Facebook now has a dislike button! Click 'Enable Dislike Button' to turn on the new feature." According to the security firm, hackers were able to replace the share button with the phony dislike button, making the scam that much more convincing to its users. Clicking on the link will prompt users to follow specific steps including copying and pasting JavaScript in their browsers which then attempts to scam other Facebook users to do the same by posting it on their wall.

Thus far, the "Enable Dislike Button" ploy doesn't appear to be malicious in nature but rather a typical survey scam designed to maximize profits on a per-click or per-user basis. But security experts say that viral trickery has the same potential to run malicious code on victims' machines, which could cause their systems to crash or enable hackers to install malware that could completely take control of their computers to access and steal sensitive data.

So the bottom line is that if you truly dislike something on Facebook, send a private message.

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