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Tracy Mooney
Chief Cyber Security Mom Tracy, a mother of three from a Chicago, Illinois suburb, is a regular mom with the same ...
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Facebook Password Spam: Don't open that attachment
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My friend Marlynn received an email from Facebook saying that her password had been reset this week. The cool thing was that after reading the email, she opened a new web browser to Facebook (maybe after reading my blog 
), typed in her current username and password to test it and it still worked!
She has continued to receive seven more of the same emails since then. In her words “I never open those things” – Smart woman! And according to McAfee Labs, you shouldn’t open any attachments or links from odd looking emails either. They wanted to alert you about this global threat that is currently targeting Facebook users worldwide.
Here is how this scam goes down…
First, you receive an email from a scammer that looks like it is from Facebook (it’s not!). They tell you that your password has been reset and that you need to open the email to get the new one.
Don’t open it!
The attachment is probably a password stealer that installs on your computer when you click on it.
If you did open it then the password stealer can potentially access any username and password combination used on it, not just for your Facebook account.
Below is an example scam email:
Here are 3 critical things you need to know about this type of scam.
(But if you want more information about this threat check out www.mcafee.com/consumer-threat-blog):
1. Facebook would never send an email alerting you that they changed your password.
2. If you do receive a suspicious email from Facebook with an attachment then do not open the attachment. Quickly delete the scam email.
3. Another clue that can signal you may have received a spam email is the use of poor grammar and awkward phrases such as in the below greeting “Dear user of facebook.”
You can protect their computer from this type of cybercrime by installing a complete security software suite that includes anti-virus, anti-spyware, and firewall protection.
Please keep in mind that McAfee customers with current subscriptions are protected from this type of malware.
Tracy
@mcafeecybermom
cybermom
mcafee
com (cybermommcafeecom)
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Tags: facebook, McAfee, online threat, password stealer, scam, social networking, spam
Comments (2)
One thing to note is that an attachment may look innocent, but see if the name that you are seeing is complete. If there are … before the size it is not and is probably an executable. If there are a lot of spaces before .exe then it is an executable.
For example ‘Document.htm .exe’ is not an HTML document but a .exe file!
Today I received a message with subject
Facebook 2011 Promotions .VIEW ATTACHMENT
and a PDF attachment. Can a PDF be infectious? The sender is ‘Facebook © 2011 [jimbarnes01galanet]‘
Thank you for Help
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