Beware of fake Facebook ‘dislike’ button


Lots of people have clamored for a “dislike” button on Facebook, which so far only officially allows people to “like” content on its site. Now, some social-media spoilers are trying to turn the public’s desire for that dislike button into a scam, CNN reports. Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at the British security firm Sophos, wrote in an Aug. 16 blog post that fake dislike buttons are going viral on Facebook. Watch out for posts that look like this, he says: “I just got the Dislike button, so now I can dislike all of your dumb posts lol!!” That statement on Facebook is typically followed with a link, Cluley writes, that takes people to a fake Facebook application. Instead of installing a dislike button, Cluley says, the application uses a person’s social network to continue spreading the fake program. “If you do give the app permission to run, it silently updates your Facebook status to promote the link that tricked you in the first place, thus spreading the message virally to your Facebook friends and online contacts,” he writes. Cluley says the fake dislike button is part of a recent trend of Facebook scams whose titillating links play on tech memes and themes from pop culture. Typically, such schemes are designed to steal information from internet users. That information then can be sold to other parties. The scams also can be used to co-opt an internet user’s social network contacts. If you accidentally installed the fake application, click on the “account” button at the top right of the Facebook home screen. Navigate to the option that says “application settings,” and disable the fake “dislike” application…

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