You just got home from work. So now you just want to sit down and relax, while you spend some time on your computer. You decide that you want to see what all of your friends are up to on Facebook. So you log in and you see the normal chatter that goes on every other time that you log in. You look up and see a piece of red on the screen. This indicates that someone has sent you a message. You then click on the message and you see a weird link. You know the person that sent it to you and you consider them trustworthy. They state in the message that they really want you to see what is on the other side of that link. So you click it and nothing happens. You are just directed to a blank page, with nothing displayed on it. You start to surf Facebook again and then you decide to log out. The next day you receive an email from a couple of friends asking why you sent them a weird link that took them to nowhere. Now you know that the link was not as innocent as it seemed. It infected your Facebook account, and sent your friends that same infection. There are a couple of viruses out there, that attack social media web sites specifically. We will go through a few of them and tell you what you should look out for.

Social media security – common attacks

One of the most effective attacks on a social network was the Koobface virus. It had its reign of terror a couple of years ago. This was a virus, or more accurately a worm, named Koobface that attacked the users of Facebook. Since nothing like it had been seen before, people were caught unprepared. It was so effective, that the same formula was used to attack other social media web sites as well. This included Myspace, Bebo, Friendster and others. The worm would direct users to download a fake Adobe Flash player upgrade message. Once they did this, their computer would become infected and the worm would gain control over certain part of the system. There were a lot of people that were hit with this malware and the person who wrote it probably made a lot of money.

There have been a couple of other attacks that have affected social media web sites as well. These attacks included using fake videos and pictures to get people to click on them. Once the item was clicked, then the attacker had free reign to install whatever they needed to, on the person’s computer. There are still attacks that happen, but people are becoming more attuned in to being careful in what items they click on. Even on a web site such as Facebook.

Social media security – rules

You can avoid your computer being in danger when it comes to a site such as this, if you follow a certain set of rules. The first rule, is to treat social media web sites like you treat your email. Scan everything, no matter where it comes from. Also do not friend anyone that you do not know. Or if you do, check out their profile page and see if they are a real person. Most of the malware that you get will come from fake accounts. They just want to be able to have access to you and send you links.

If you follow the social media security rules, then you will have a safe time on your computer. You will be able to enjoy social media web sites as they were meant to be used.

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