SEO | Online Virus / Malware News

Facebook “Un Named App” scare leads to malware

January 27, 2010

A few minutes ago I noticed that a friend of mine had posted the following status to her Facebook profile:

: Facebook status

Of course this got my bat senses tingling and I smelled a panic-inducing spiral of insanity brewing, so I thought I’d have a bit of a look around.

Nothing to worry about here as far as your Facebook is concerned, this does not appear to be a genuine malicious app. In fact a thread on Yahoo answers appears to demonstrate in a reproducible fashion that “Un named App” is nothing more than your “Boxes” tab on your Facebook profile page.

Beware though, there is still real risk attached to this Chinese whisper. Criminals have picked up on the concern among Facebook users (or possibly they were responsible for starting the rumour?) and they have already started to poison Google search results.

Google search result

I queried Google for “facebook unnamed app” and the third result on the first page pointed to a malicious website set up for the purposes of distributing fake anti-virus software, this time called “Security Tool”. If you are unwary enough to click the link you will be presented with a dialogue box informing you that you have a huge number of infected files on your machine and prompting you to use Security Tool to clean them up. The software of course is no real security solution and is designed to fool the victim into parting with hard-earned cash.

Security Tool Rogue AV

Always search with caution, especially when searching for terms of high current popularity. Using search trends and conversation trends to target malicious software is now a firmly established criminal modus operandi.

If you are worried about computer security and not sure where to click, you can always contact me directly. If you feel you may have been affected by this or any other scam, then I would advise you to go and scan your PC with a real security solution, our own free HouseCall service.