Photobucket
Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket
CLICK ON THE GRAPHIC ABOVE TO HEAD TO ALL OF TODAY'S NEWS STORIES
Thursday, January 31, 2013

Are Your Social Friends Infecting You With Malware?


social malwareThe Internet and social networks are incredible – they allow us to connect with one another in a way we have never been able to before. But in many instances, they also propose a threat. You see, wetrust our friends and contacts. Therefore, whenever a friend shares something they read or use on a social network, we are much more inclined to check it out, whereas we might be more hesitant if we just saw it amongst some search engine results. So what do you do to prevent becoming infected with malware via social networks?
The precautions are simple:
  1. Be aware and care
  2. Think before you click
  3. Warn your friends
  4. Properly set security settings
Ultimately, there are three kinds of naive friends that we have who are potential threats to us on social networks:
  • The Facebook Over-Sharer
  • The Dodgy Downloader
  • The Victim Of Identity Theft

The Facebook Over-Sharer

This is the person who prefers the Share button over the Like button and who blows up your News Feed. I have a few of these and they’re annoying. Sure you can prevent them from showing up in your News Feed altogether or filter out different kinds of posts… however, often times they do share a lot of good things – just too much.

So what’s the threat?

Because they share too much, the odds are higher that they’re bound to share malicious links once in a while – it’s a numbers game.

What can I do?

There are a few things you can do. For starters, you can install certain browser extensions which flag known malicious sites. Note that not every tool is 100% is perfect and there may be the occasional site that goes undetected.
There are several browser extensions for this including Web Of Trust, BitDefender’s TrafficLight, AVG’s LinkScanner, McAfee’s SiteAdviser and Norton’s Safe Web. In addition we’ve written about some more tools in the articles 8 Ways To Make Sure A Link Is Safe Before You Click It and 4 Quick Sites That Let You Check if Links Are Safe.
The clincher is, though, that not all of those tools work in social networks. There is one, which has been proven effective for this and that is Web Of Trust. It’s what I use, personally, and I feel that it is the most accurate due to the substantial community.
social malware
In addition there are some useful Facebook applications that you can use to enhance your security and protect yourself against the over-sharers.
BitDefender’s Safego, which is different from TrafficLight, but works well in combination with it. Safego works by scanning links which have been posted by your friends and pages that you follow.
social network malware
Safego has three specific features. Account protection, which warns you and protects your account against social network-specific scams by automatically scanning the posts in your News Feed for spam messages and malicious links. QuickScan, which, in less than 60 seconds, gives you a safety status check. QuickScan is an official product of BitDefender. Lastly, there’s the Friend Safe Net, where Safego automatically warns your friends when “fishy” links are posted in their News Feeds. Note that the “Publish to Wall” option must be enabled for this to work.
social network malware
For more information you can follow their Facebook page.
Norton Safe Web is another. It works by scanning your Facebook News Feed for the links shared with you in the past 24 hours. There is a label system which includes five categories: Norton Secured, Safe, Caution, Warning, and Untested.
social network malware
Note that for Auto-Scan to work, you must manually turn it on at first and approve the application’s permissions to access certain parts of your account. Also, I want to emphasize the importance of checking over the permissions of any app you are about to allow access to your profile.
getting malware from facebook
For more information about Norton Safe Web, you can follow it on Facebook.

The Dodgy Downloader

You know those people who install everything without thinking on their computer? Well, sadly they likely have a Facebook account as well. In fact, as you’ve probably noticed, as they’re the people constantly sending you app invites.

So what’s the threat?

About those app invites… you know that not all apps are safe? You probably do, but how do you tell? You follow those four tips at the beginning of the article. Out of all of those, probably the most important one for this category of friend is think before you click.

What can I do?

Whenever you’re invited to use an app, refrain from trying it, unless you know for sure that it’s safe. If you think the app is somehow unsafe, you can report it to Facebook as spam. You can also alert the person who “sent” it (because chances are, they didn’t actually send it). Recently, before I even considered writing an article about this, I had this exact experience where a friend sent me a request to use an app. Web Of Trust flagged it as unsafe, not that I would have clicked it anyway – I hate (most) apps.
getting malware from facebook
So what did I do? Well, as you can see, I looked it up and verified that it was unsafe. Then I contacted them. They received my recommendation kindly and removed it (I assume). This works on most occasions. Unfortunately, you will probably have some “friends” who don’t care about what apps that have and will ignore your recommendations. The best thing you can do is use a tool like Web Of Trust to look out for malicious links.

The Victim Of Identity Theft

If you aren’t careful and click a link from “The Facebook Over-Sharer” or “The Dodgy Downloader” you just might end up like one of your friends who is “The Victim Of Identity Theft”. You wouldn’t want that would you? But, even if you weren’t one yet, you could become one. How? From a friend who is one already.

So what’s the threat?

Right now you’re probably thinking “this doesn’t sound like a problem of mine, and I don’t have time to worry about my friends’ issues.” Well… you’re wrong because of two things:
  1. It is a problem of yours because you connect with them on Facebook.
  2. You’re on Facebook. Don’t give me the “I don’t have time” excuse.
Number one kind of sucks, doesn’t it? Yeah – that’s a big issue with Facebook. But it doesn’t have to be if you’ve made the proper precautions – you know, the ones listed at the beginning of the article that I keep referring to?

What can I do?

While all of those can be helpful in preventing the same curse happening to you, the biggest one is to properly set your security and privacy settings, which Facebook has recently made very easy. While the article I linked to provides the details, I will touch upon the basics. First, check out your Security Settings.
getting malware from facebook
Here you can adjust the settings for Secure Browsing, Login Notifications, Login Approvals, App Passwords, Recognized Devices and Active Sessions – all of which are important to familiarize yourself with.
But that’s not it – there are also Privacy settings and Timeline and Tagging settings.
getting malware from facebook
The Privacy Settings and Tools provide controls under two categories: “Who can see my stuff?” and “Who can look me up?” In the first section, you can control who can see your future posts, review all posts and the things you’re tagged in and limit the audience for posts you’ve shared with friends of friends or the Public. The second section allows you to change who can look you up using the email address or phone number associated with your account, and whether or not to allow search engines to link to your timeline.
The Timeline and Tagging Settings are equally as important. Have you ever been “spammed” on your wall from a friend via an app? That’s because you haven’t enabled the setting to approve posts before being published to your Timeline – do that and you’ll never be spammed. Note that whenever a friend “spams” your wall, they may or may not realize they’re doing it. Also, consider that by allowing your friends to “spam” your wall, you’re subjecting your other friends to the same junk – that’s not very considerate.
Don’t just stop at the Facebook security and privacy pages though – explore the App Settingspage as well. There are a couple of important sections to note.
  1. Apps you use
  2. Apps others use
The Apps you use section has a “switch” to turn on/off Facebook Platform which, as explained in the image below, allows you to use apps and websites with Facebook.
If you don’t want to use Facebook with anything, by all means, turn it off. But you’ll likely want to use it with some app (such as the security ones mentioned earlier) or sign into a website, like here at MakeUseOf.
It is important to address, however, that with this turned off, you won’t receive any app invites from friends. The Apps you use section is important for exploring what apps you have installed. Take a second to see what apps you’re using and which ones you aren’t. It’s also important to go over what the apps have access to on your profile.
social malware
The Apps others use section allows you to control what your friend’s apps can access onyour own. That’s right – if you see any of these check boxes checked, apps that your friends use are using that info about you. Need I say more?

Conclusion

By taking these precautions you will reduce your chances of acquiring malware via your social media contacts. Facebook was the primary social network focused on in this article, but the same rules can be used on other social networks, especially where clicking on links is concerned. MyPermissions.org is an excellent tool for managing what services have access to your social networks.
Below are a few additional sources for information about Facebook security and preventing infections:
What are your experiences with Facebook malware? Any pet peeves you’d like to share (like I have)? Are there any other tools that you use, which have proven to reduce malicious apps and links in your News Feed?
:

Aaron Couch

Aaron Couch is a Vet Assistant and an exotic animal enthusiast who also loves mountain biking, photography and playing basketball. When he's not writing or indulging in technological findings throughout the interwebs, he can be found interning at his local zoo. More about Aaron on his personal website.