Facebook virus: is your computer infected?
A Facebook virus is thriving by stealing bank account information and security passwords. The virus infects a user’s computer through Facebook. It can then stay dormant on a computer without the victim ever realizing.
Once an online bank account is accessed on the infected computer, the virus jumps into action, downloading your private data. This can ultimately lead to account funds being completely drained.
Only when funds go missing does a victim realize that their computer is infected by the virus.
The virus named ‘Zeus’ has actually been around for 6 years already, after first being discovered in 2007. However, it has been reported by Micro Trend that the Facebook virus is becoming more and more of a threat, with the number of infected computers peaking in May. Millions of users have already been infected with the ‘Trojan horse’ type virus, mostly in America.
Do your security procedures protect you against a potential Facebook virus?
How to avoid the Facebook virus
Have you ever received a weird spam or phishing like message from a friend? They typically go along the lines of ‘check this out..I found a cool new site…’ and are posted with a link to an external website. Sometimes they will have links to videos or products.
Our advice is: Don’t click them!
Impersonal, generic style messages from a friend are actually probably not sent from that friend. Instead, it’s probably a phishing message sent from an external website that has gained control over your friend’s account. If you’re not sure – don’t click.
What is Facebook doing?
Facebook has not commented specifically on this virus, but has reiterated that it does all it can to reduce online threats, by scanning for viruses and giving users options over their security.
Eric Feinberg, founder of the advocacy group ‘Fans Against Kounterfeit Enterprise’, has attacked Facebook’s lacklustre stance. He said that “They’re not listening…we need oversight on this.”
He also noted that all somebody has to do to hack another account, is make a fake Facebook profile. “It’s so simple, it’s stupid,” he added.
The group responsible for the Facebook virus is thought to be an organised criminal gang, located in Russia.
Watch this video to learn exactly how to protect your computer against the Facebook virus:
https://youtu.be/kZ9160NOKIw
Your Facebook safety
As previously mentioned, the best thing to protect yourself online, is to look out for phishing or spam style messages sent from your friend’s accounts. If it look suspicious, don’t click. This applies to protecting against this Facebook virus and other scams on different sites.
We’ll also point you in the direction of Facebook’s official advice about Malware threats. Here you can learn more about online threats to your computer and what to do if you suspect that you might be at risk. Here’s the link (which you can trust us on!)
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