Tweet

In a second attack, extremely reminiscent of the one that took place this weekend, Facebook users have once again been victimized by cybercriminals. Reports started surfacing this afternoon of yet another rogue Facebook application posting notifications to user profiles that said: (Name on my friend’s list) has just reported you to Facebook for violating our Terms of Service. – This is your official warning! – [Click here to find out why you were reported!] – Request Facebook look at what has happened and rule immediately.

Figure 1. Facebook notification

The link in the notification led on to an application named f a c e b o o k – - closing down!!! which, once installed, would proceed to spam all of the affected user’s friends with the same message. It may also harvest personal information along the way.

In the short time the account was active, it had enough impact to cause the generation of a Facebook group for victims:

Figure 2. Facebook group

Surely these two events in just a single week mean that it’s about time that Facebook reviews its application hosting policy. Prevention of rogue applications with extremely dubious intent to propagate freely within the site is needed. Users are advised to exercise extreme caution when surfing. It’s always good to research first, to ask, like what one Facebook user did on Yahoo! Answers:

Figure 3. Posted question on Yahoo! Answers