Have your Facebook friends invited you to switch your boring blue Facebook profile to an attractive shade of red, black or shocking pink?
Judging by the number of messages the Naked Security team has received from Facebook users struck by the scam in the last few days, many social networking users must have seen similar messages to the following:
Switch to Pink Facebook (Limited Time!)
[LINK]
Say goodbye to the boring blue profile and say hello to the pink profile!!
Switch to Red Facebook (Limited Time!)
[LINK]
Say goodbye to the boring blue profile and say hello to the red profile!!
So what happens if you click on one of these links? Well, typically, are you are told that you must take multiple steps to receive your differently hue of Facebook.
Firstly, you are told to share the link with your online friends. This should be the first indication that something is amiss - after all, what legitimate feature or organisation would require you to share news of it *before* you have actually experienced what - if anything - it can do for you?
Secondly, you are asked to leave a comment - extolling the wonderfulness of your new pink or red Facebook. Remember - at this point your Facebook is still decidedly blue. Any comment you leave will, of course, act as an endorsement and could be seen by your online friends and encourage them to also participate.
Predictably, the point of all of this sharing is to drive more traffic to the scammers' link where an online survey will pop-up. The more people who take the survey, the more commission that the scammers will earn.
That's not to say, of course, that it's impossible to turn your Facebook pink, red or black if you really want to. For instance, there are number of GreaseMonkey scripts which will work alongside the Firefox web browser to customise the look of Facebook - just as the look of eBay or GMail can be similarly changed on the fly if you choose.
Clearly there's a demand for such customisation - even if it serves no practical purpose. But just make sure that your hunger for a pink-themed Facebook doesn't lead you into a scheme designed purely to earn money for scammers.
If you're one of the many people who fell for this or similar scams, please check your Facebook page to ensure that you are not spreading any messages to your online friends and ensure that you have revoked any Facebook applications, events and "like"d pages that you are uncomfortable with.
If you use Facebook and want to get an early warning about the latest attacks, you should join the Sophos Facebook page where we have a thriving community of over 150,000 people.
Follow @gcluley
pfft any of those get my good old and well trusted "SPAM" comment and I pay them not attention at all they are all just stupid I want to see facebook sort out those spammers with a little ip ban on them so they wont get back in and spam again but that would take out a lot of the 800 million members and I think The Zuck wouldnt allow anything like that to take place but I would want them to have better security against this stuff from happening again
You have no clue how an IP ban would work do you?
For most internet users, every time you restart the router, or once weekly when your DHCP "lease" is up you get a new ip address so that wouldn't do anything at all.
Try some punctuation. My brain has never had to work so hard before. :)
I really think facebook should learn from these scams. Facebook keeps adding feature after feature that no one wants yet it is obvious that there are simple things like offering color customization that people do want. Actually offering these features would also cut done on things like this.
But then FB would also lose a stack of readies from the lost advertising...
With ppl like me, the lose anyway; AdBlock Plus and Feed Filter are wonderful add-ons for firefox.
I will believe when they say it turns to green :D
Facebook won't add a feature they can't make money from. They've only increased security when their *partners* complained, or if they've had a lot of complaints from their sheep, uh, er, users. When they can figure out how to sell customization to a third-party advertiser, then it'll happen. The rumored IPO may change this, but I won't hold my breath.
GOOGLE GOOGLE GOOGLE............ ..If you are not sure then Google it ....it will either throw you to info from Sophos or the many other sites dedicated to try and get rid of these spammers on Facebook ......it's just a shame we have to rely on other dedicated sites to check spammers and Facebook can't do it for themselves
This is something unbelievable regarding with facebook and it should definitely take some steps to get out of all these things
Anyways to be on safer side its recommended to get rid of these scams.
So I fell for this about 2-3 weeks ago, but have not noticed any unusual activity. Is there a way to remove it?
So I fell for this about 2-3 weeks ago, but have not noticed any unusual activity. Is there a way to remove it?
I am one of the suckers who fell for it... when i realized it's a scam, it was too late.
All of a suden facebook threw me out saying there was a security issue and I had to reset my password. I probably should have gone to a fresh page before login in...
In the meantime, 4-5 posts were put on some good friends tempting them to follow suit and I was blocked from posting, chatting or sending messages, so I couldn't warn my friends of the scam. But I could go to their individual pages (my wall said which friends I supposedly posted to) and delete the scam-post.
Now my Facebook has limited access, I still can't post, chat or send messages from the browser where it happened (google chrome), but I can use Facebook unobstructed from Firefox, or from a different laptop.
I cannot find any litterature on FB's help pages, nor by googling, on how to restore full functionality of my FB account on Google Chrome.
Any suggestions?
.. how to switch pink facebook to blue ?