Exposure to malware on facebook and how to prevent them

By Prempal Singh 0 Comment June 17, 2016

Facebook malware

In this article you can understand that what is Facebook malware, how they work, how to protect yourself and the most important that what to do when you get infected.

Introduction: I think we all know about social media websites like Facebook, Twitter which proceeds the 21 century and huge number of people are connected each other through social networking sites. But clever people take advantage of innocent people like:

1. Obtain sensitive information like online banking details or any type of personal information.
2. Using the software as a bridge in a major cyber-attacks.
3. Impersonating you and using your account for their own ends.
4. Installing some form of adware on your computer and bombarding your machine with limitless pop-up ads
5. distributing spam through your computer for material gains, misleading you to fill away a survey or by any other means make an effort to acquire financial resources and sending or transferring the virus to more people via your machine with the hope of multiplying their material benefits
6. Retaliating, gaining popularity or proving that they can infiltrate someone’s machine or/and spreading the computer virus to a lot of men and women or of folks for the same reasons.

Generally, every virus is malicious because its conscience and harmful. To effectively combat viruses in Facebook, one should be aware not only of the steps needed that should to be taken in in an attempt to protect himself, but one also needs to know the various ways by which they can be transmitted to his machine as this will greatly reduce the risks of getting a virus by showing where and when to expect them.

In addition, one must also acquaint himself with the means of combating a current malicious code on his machine imported by a social media such as Facebook.

Below, I discuss several notorious Facebook malware and speak about their goal, their way of dispersal, ways of avoiding them and last but not least, eliminating them.
There are 9 ways (Popular) to to attacking your Facebook Profile:

1. Clickjacking – Hackers execute hidden commands or action, when you click on link or any button.
2. Password Compromise – In password compromise hackers or criminals are create false log in pages to misleading into giving your login details in Facebook application or by other means request like Facebook apps.
3. Drive-by installing or downloading, where a malware is immediately installed on your device when you go to a website. Drive-by downloading usually occurs without the permission demand or notice that you are downloading the adware and spyware or malware.
4. Direct messages can be malicious when one or more of your friends’ accounts are affected and they unknowingly send messages which often lead your machine contracting the malware as well.
5. Malicious content is another way in which criminals spread their adware and spyware or malware. After your friend is infected, he will most likely send Wall Articles or Content and other way of distributing the word with harmful content.
6. Shortened links are a way for criminals to disguise the malign content the real URL contains.
7. Dangerous programs can be installed on your device after you click on a malign link. This usually happens when once you click on the link and you are requested to update a popular program like Paving material Flash Player (if the malicious software is disguised in a video). These programs or software may also request delicate information or login details.
8. Fake profiles are a widespread practice and that is why you should not add people in Facebook that you do not know. Generally, these profiles include pictures of a very beautiful woman or man. This really is in order to make the profile appealing also to trick you into adding the criminal as a friend. Once you do, they do not only spy on your personal information and photos, but also send you malicious content and messages.
9. E-mails are a popular method for phishing and spreading adware and spyware or malware. The criminal would send you an e-mail that looks and feels just like a message from Facebook and will declare that you have a new friend request or any notification; when you click the link to add the friend or check the notification, you may have installed a malware.

Famous Facebook Virus

WORM_STEKCT.EVL
Stekct.evl is new Facebook virus, it is transmitted by Pop-ups, chat windows. It is infected of your all friends which you have on your friend’s lists like send harmful links to all friends and if someone is click on their link then the worm automatically download and make replica of itself. It is affected only windows operating system.
Main reasons to infected are if you are using older version of windows like windows xp, 2000 or AV products.

WORM_KOOBFACE.AZ
Koobface is a not so recent malware which transfers through Facebook and other social media. Basically, you get a message from a friend in Facebook (not through the pop-up chat window) providing you with a sentence like “This is the online video with you on CCTV footage” and a website link to view it.

If opened up, the web link seems like you are entering YouTube yet another trusted website and it also appears that a genuine video is hosted because the name of your Facebook friend is explained in the website (the website could be Twitter or it could be different to obtain hosted the video and there is an image extracted from his Facebook further indicating this.

The thing is “before” playing the video you need to install something (such as a more recent version of Adobe flash Player) and if you click “Install” (thus, installing setup.exe) the malware is saved on your device. The worm then browses through your cookies, connects to your interpersonal media sites with the login information saved during these cookies and efforts to infect your friends by sending them the same message.

Conclusion
It could be concluded that malware has penetrated the Facebook community, to some extent. There are numerous reasons why malware is created. These malware take various forms, whether of applications or executable files which you will never even notice installing and also have negative results on your device. To effectively combat Facebook adware and spyware one must:

1. Regularly change your password and not use cookies
2. Remove any programs or software that seem to be questionable or sketchy and which may have not performed the actual claimed they perform
3. Remember that messages in your inbox, chat communications, posts on Walls and Timeline, and notifications (such as a “notification” that claims that somebody labeled him in a picture) may contain malware if the friend sharing them is infected and one should ask your good friend whether it was this individual who sent the concept
4. Enable login approvals
5. Make use of up-to-date anti-virus software, ideally, with full real-time safety or security and up-to-date version of his OS
6. Enable a firewall and use up dated browser that comes with an anti-phishing blacklist
7. Check the route of shortened URLs by previewing them or by using a URL decoder
8. Not provide a Facebook account and security password to third-party websites
9. Erase spam, viral or harmful messages that can be found in your Facebook profile and report any malware found
10. Only use the services of trusted or dependable developers
11. If the dubious website link points one to a well-known website, always check the website’s spelling to avoid phishing
12. Note that legit mails from Facebook usually include or contain “update” updates rather than “notification” and that Facebook will never request his password via email
13. Don’t click on a notification if it shows up illegitimate, but see what it is about from your profile (if the notification is real)
14. Consider from the app’s communications, context and presented ideas the degree of the reliability and credibility
15. Just add friends that you know are real – don’t add unknown people as friends to your Facebook account.
16. Don’t trust programs which claim to put in a new feature to Facebook platform, such as profile viewer and do not like button.
17. Avoid links which lead to surveys that need to fill out before you “continue, ” as they are most likely scams
18. Remember that popular ideas, notions, people and occasions are often a basis for scams
19. Periodically read materials on the latest threats in Facebook to understand how to manage them.