Warning! - Frequent Phishing Attacks On Facebook

Facebook is the fastest growing social networking website in the world with a million new users weekly and more than 200 million in all. It's also a popular target for phishing attacks that are popping up with regular frequency. Why Facebook? Because as a social networking site, click- through rates on messages from friends are always going to be high, even if the contents of the message are somewhat out of the ordinary. Spammers know this and are taking advantage of the trusting environment. For example, Facebook users have been getting messages that appear to come from friends with "hello" in the subject line and links inviting them to check out sites with unusual URLs like "areps.at," "kirgo.at" and "bests.at.'' If you log into one of the sites, scammers take your e-mail address and password, and then send the same URL to all your friends.

Since many Facebook users use the same passwords across a variety of sites, a successful phishing scammer could potentially gain illegal access to their accounts on other sites such as Web-based e-mail. That paves the way for still more attacks, as phishers can then use victims' hijacked e-mail accounts to compromise other websites and spread more messages containing malicious links. To combat these threats, Facebook recommends the following:

• Use an up-to-date browser that features an anti-phishing black list, such as Internet Explorer 8 or Firefox 3.0.10.
• Use unique logins and passwords for each of the websites you use.
• Check to see that you're logging in from a legitimate Facebook page with the facebook.com domain.
• Be cautious of any message, post, or link you find on Facebook that looks suspicious or requires an additional login.
• Become a fan of the Facebook Security Page for more updates on new threats as well as helpful information on how to protect yourself online.

Thanks to Park Region & Otter Tail Telcom for this information!