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Healthy Passwords

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Facebook Dislike Button Scam

Date: 2011-05-17 15:53:45

By K. Klein, Healthy Passwords
May 17, 2011 3:00 PM EST

Sophos Security recently reported on a Facebook threat in the form of a dislike button. You receive a Facebook message about something. Partway down the message is text describing a new dislike "Thumbs Down" feature. To use the new feature, you must enable it by clicking the link. When you click the link, you’ve unwittingly sent the same message to all your friends by allowing a malicious script to post the same message to your profile. The good news is the malicious script appears to do no more than replicate the original message.

There are two things you can do to protect against this type of scam.

  1. Modify your facebook security settings to limit who can send you messages.

  2. Modify your behavior to understand that facebook system change notices will not come to you in messages from friends. They will come from Facebook directly.

Even if you modify your security to limit messages to friends only, you will only be as strong as your weakest direct friend. If your cousin friends everyone and clicks on everything, then you may still get these types of scams. Changing it will, however, limit your exposure.

If you’d like to modify who can send you Facebook messages and email:

  1. Go to the Account drop-down menu at the top of any Facebook page and select "Privacy Settings."

  2. Select "View settings" in the "Basic Directory Information" section.

  3. Change the setting for "Send me messages." Your options include Everyone, Friends and Friends of Friends.

Only emails from people that fall within the message privacy setting you choose will be delivered to your Facebook Messages. For example, if you select the "Friends Only" setting, you will not receive messages from email addresses that are not confirmed to be one of your friends. Instead, those senders will receive automatic bounce-back replies.

For step-by-step instructions with screenshots see How To Restrict Messages to Only Friends

Category: Facebook

Subcategory: Phishing

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