Fake “Dislike” button Scam on Facebook
There is a scam born every minute on Facebook, and Facebook just can’t keep up and remove them fast enough. Many of the scams are just designed to spam you and all your friends, it works just like a chain letter. You authorize some spam app on your profile it posts stuff all over your profile and your friends click it and add it to their profile and it perpetuates from there.
The “dislike” button is something people have been asking for from Facebook for a long time now. The scammers used this to their advantage when claiming to be the official dislike button for Facebook. You click a link from a friends profile that talks about a dislike button. It goes to a screen that wants you to install something to your profile. After you fill out a survey you get forwarded to a Firefox plugin that modifies Facebook’s appearance which isn’t apart of the scam. The Facebook application you authorized secretly post stuff to your profile that continues the spread of the scam.
The scammers are after the information in the survey which could be used to spam your email address or even used to steal your identity. Because the application posts items to your profile it has spread like wildfire through Facebook. Because the scammers deliver an actual plugin that presumably does something people are slow to figure out it was a scam.
Remember never give out personal information over the internet especially not to creepy Facebook applications. If you click something with an interesting title but it wants you to install something before viewing it don’t do it. It’s just spam and you should report it to Facebook.
Tags: Facebook, ID theft, identity theft, identity theft protection