[GeoStL] Re: OT: Facebook Virus? How do they work?
- From: Andrew Senger <asenger@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: geocaching@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 16:20:49 -0500
-
Good advice so far, and LuAnn touched on a good way to detect fake messages.
A lot of times, these messages get caught by spam filters. Spam
filters are set up to look for certain words, and most give these
words a "score". If the score of the email is high enough, it's
flagged.
When the fake people send spam emails, they obviously want to bypass
the spam filters. They do this by purposely mispelling werds,
doublling leeters, or u5ing numb3rs in the words. The spam filters
don't catch them, and the email goes through.
A lot times, banks and other companies will tell you to go directly to
their website and never use a link in an email. This is because the
links frequently go to a fake place. For example, the message sent
through Shirley's account (which I also received) started with
www.facebook.com , so most people would find it legit. However, after
the facebook address, it has a semicolon and then the address it sent
you to. When I tried http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://www.myspace.com
, it went to Facebook, which said that I was being transfered to
another site, and listed www.myspace.com . I would assume the same
thing happened when others clicked on the actual address, yet people
trusted it because it was "sent" by Shirley.
LuAnn also mentioned she changed her passwords. This is a great thing
to do if you believe your account has been hacked. You may wonder why
the people that take the account don't change the password. Most
websites will email a person if their password is changed, along with
a link to go to if they didn't authorize the change. I don't know if
Facebook does that.
Bottom line: Be very leary with links (and attachments) you receive,
even from friends. I still refuse to open attachments sent by anyone,
even my own mother, unless I know the file is coming and it's sent for
a reason ("check this out, it's funny!" isn't a good reason).
Andrew Senger
asenger@xxxxxxxxx
http://www.yawetag.net
"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. He's also
postmaster and probably traffic cop, too. All the jobs for sports
referees are probably filled, though." --Lemel Hebert-Williams
On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 3:47 PM, LuAnn <luigilula@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> It's sort of like phishing.
>
> I've gotten several messages from FB friends that weren't really from them.
> The links were from a foreign country and I suspected they were viral so I
> just deleted them. Plus words were spelled with double letters frequently.
>
> But to be on the safe side I changed my passwords and ran my antivirus
> program......I was clean.
>
> LuAnn
>
> --- On Wed, 6/3/09, tnands <sydstyr@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> From: tnands <sydstyr@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [GeoStL] OT: Facebook Virus? How do they work?
> To: "Geocaching Freelist" <geocaching@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Wednesday, June 3, 2009, 2:21 PM
>
> Does anyone know or can anyone explain how FB viruses (virii?) work?
>
> For example...
> I have a few of you as FB friends. A couple of weeks ago someone from a
> geocaching account started to chat with me. It wasn't the person who owns
> that account. Now today, I had a message in the FB inbox from CW/Shirley
> that also wasn't from her. (I confirmed this with her). In the message was
> a link to something that I suspect was rather "Adult" on nature.
>
> Who has the problem? Me? Her? or FB? What are the odds that one or both of
> us now have something ugly living in our computers? My scans aren't picking
> anything up.
>
> I've googled FAcebook Virus etc but not sure what to trust.
>
> Has anyone have experience with this that they could just point us in the
> right direction.
>
> This could be in everyone's best interest. While I only have 5 cachers as
> friends, I can see that those 5 have a ton more.
>
> Nancy
>
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