“My 1st Status” scam spreads virally on Facebook

Issued by Me Talk Pretty for Sophos South Africa

Johannesburg, 07 Jan 2011

Sophos is warning Facebook users about the latest survey scam that is spreading virally across the social network. Messages claiming to share the users' first ever Facebook status updates are being posted on users' walls by a rogue application.

Typical posts read:
"My 1st St@tus was: '[random message]'. This was posted on [random date]
Find your 1st St@tus @ [LINK]"

If users click on this link, which appears to be posted by a Facebook friend, they are taken to a rogue Facebook application. This application will then ask users to give it permission to access their profile, which gives the rogue application the ability to post the same message from the affected account. Users are also taken to a Web page that contains a survey.

Those behind the scam make commission from the number of people completing this survey, and in some cases, Facebook users might also be asked for their mobile phone numbers in order to sign them up for a premium-rate service.

"Many people are all too quick to give permission to rogue applications such as these, giving the scammers free reign of their Facebook account,” says Brett Myroff, CEO of regional Sophos distributor, Sophos South Africa. “If users allow these applications to access their profiles they may well find that the application has posted a message on their Facebook page, which is visible to all of their online friends and helps to spread the scam further.”

Facebook users that have been affected should delete references to this scam from their wall to avoid sharing it further with their online friends.

A video showing how to clean-up accounts can be found at: http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/01/06/my-1st-sttus-scam

Sophos South Africa

NetXactics, trading as Sophos South Africa, is a South African-based company focused on the provision of security solutions. It is the master distributor for UK-based Sophos, one of the leaders in the provision of network access control and endpoint, e-mail and Web security and control solutions for the corporate environment. For more information, visit Sophos South Africa at http://www.sophos.co.za.

Sophos

Sophos enables enterprises worldwide to secure and control their IT infrastructure. Our network access control, endpoint, Web and e-mail solutions simplify security to provide integrated defences against malware, spyware, intrusions, unwanted applications, spam, policy abuse, data leakage and compliance drift. With over 20 years of experience, we protect over 100 million users in nearly 150 countries with our reliably engineered security solutions and services. Recognised for our high level of customer satisfaction, we have an enviable history of industry awards, reviews and certifications. Sophos is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts and Oxford, UK.

Editorial contacts