Recently there’s been a flood of rogue Facebook apps that steal your personal information and use it for malicious purpose, like sending you spam mails, forcing you to fill surveys, selling this info to unsolicited advertisers and so on.
Most of these apps start by promising to show you a shocking video. You are tempted so you click to watch the video. You will be then redirected to an application’s page and you have to authorize this application to use your data if you want to see this video. Once you authorize the application, ‘they’ get access to all your personal data and are free to use it in any way they want. They will also post the same video link to your profile, so that all your friends will also get into the trap. See this video from Sophos that shows the life cycle of this Facebook worm live,
How To Stay Away From Malicious and Rogue Facebook Applications
1. Never click on any untrusted links on your Friends’ wall posts. Obviously messages like the following aren’t posted by your friends’ but rogue facebook apps,
I am shocked! The teacher nearly kild this boy: http://bit.ly/aWeBMl – Worldwide scandal!
Tempting words in the messeges like scandal, hottest etc. should be enough to convince you that its a spam message and you should not click it.
2. If you have already added any application that you don’t trust, then remove it immediately. Check how to delete any application from your Facebook account.
3. If you see these kind of spam links on any of your friends’ profile then alert her of the consequences and ask her to delete that post and the rogue application immediately. You can redirect her to this page so that she can learn all about the issue.
Its good to socialize and make new friends using the online social networking platforms like Facebook but make sure that your personal information is not compromised in the process.
Share this information with your friends and help make the web a safe place!