How to avoid a Facebook virus

It's probably happened to all of us.  A friend posts a link, we click it and then it sends the same link to all of our friends.  What a nightmare!  So, how can you tell if the link is real or if its a virus?First you need to recognize that spammers and scammers often take advantage of major news events, like the death of Osama bin Laden, to trick people into clicking on links that contain malicious software.  They also tend to use phrases like "you won't believe..." or "I can't believe this..."  Often when you click these links, it seems as if nothing happens or its a bad link, butin actuality, the link installed a Facebook virus and started sending out the infected links to your friends. If they click the links, they get the virus and the vicious cycle continues.

The best way to avoid getting a nasty (and embarrassing) virus is to pay attention. Before you click on a link, think! Is this the type of link this person would typically share? If not, don’t click it. If you’re tempted to click, first hover your mouse over the link and look in the lower left corner of your internet browser. You’ll see the URL attached to that link. If it’s not a URL you’re familiar with, don’t click the link. If the link has a lot of symbols or characters or is not real words but just a bunch of gibberish or contains a .info link, I would not click the link.  As a general rule, I teach my family not to click any links to sites they've never heard of.

Here are some examples of suspicious activity:

 

If you do get a virus, the first thing you need to do is change your passwords and notify your friends. I'll go into more details about the clean up in an upcoming post, so stay tuned.  Please share your virus stories or feel free to ask questions in the comments below.