We have been seeing a lot of Facebook spam taking over our friends pages recently with links like “OMG, I hate Miley Cyrus after watching this video” being put up by people who I am pretty sure have never heard of Miley Cyrus. These hacks are relatively minor and come from clicking on link and giving permissions to a bad application. A good rule of thumb is not to give any “Contact my Friends” permissions without knowing the application is completely trustworthy.
The more serious hacks involve people taking over your profile and messaging people or chatting with friends to try and get informatuion or money. these generally happen because of a password break, make your passwords hard and change them often. And if you do get hacked jump on it quickly letting friends and family know to try and limit the damage.
Mashable- as always- has a good article on avoiding Facebook Spam.
Some key points:
A few things to keep in mind about these types of spam app attacks:
- Beware of short links that accompany text on your wall from people who don’t normally post links.
- Investigate or research any app that seems too good to be true before agreeing to install it.
- Pay attention to what apps you authorize to post to your wall.
