The guide, which was announced via a note by Facebook Security, covers a range of topics such as how to protect your Facebook account, avoid scams and the correct usage of the security settings.

It was written by former Internet Safety Director at Symantec, Linda McCarthy, Purdue University security research engineer, Keith Watson and teacher, editor and mother of Facebook users, Denise Weldon-Siviy.

Click this link to view ‘Own Your Space: A Guide to Facebook Security’.

The scam, once clicked, is shared on your friends’ walls and takes you to a fake YouTube page and a survey to fill out.

Filling out this survey provides monetary gain to scammers.

For those of you who don’t know, Casey Anthony was proved ‘not guilty’ of murdering her two-year-old, Caylee Anthony last week, much to the surprise of most who followed the trial.

Please check links on your Facebook closely before clicking them and use reputable sites for all your news sources.

If clicked, remove using the [x], and warn your friends not click the link as well.

It’s no secret Facebook has had their issues with spam and malware.  Last week, Facebook announced new methods of battling these problems (read Facebook Security’s post) and in the meantime, spammers worked to be two steps ahead of the newest adjustments.

Recently, there has been several spam posts circulating, namely the ‘Dislike’ button, being tagged in a ‘Youtube’ video and the newest version of ‘Check out who Viewed Your Profile’.

Avoid scams looking like this!

While Facebook works diligently to remove these messages, it is urging users to be careful of what links they click.

The spam messages are working on the basis of directing users to an external website. There it urges users to fill out various surveys and copy javascript code into your browsers, which gives the spam access to your account and unleashes the message to all your friends.  It can also post spam messages in your Facebook chat.

Example of Javascript

Look out for these links in wall posts and chat messages.

Do not ever repost javascript. Legitimate sites, like Facebook, would never ask you to do this.

Remember to report these links as spam using the [x] and Report as Spam option on the post.

Please do not click anything looking like or similar to this.

If this does happen to you, remove the post by clicking the [x] and click ‘Report as Spam’. Then warn your friends not to click the ‘VERIFY MY ACCOUNT’ link.

If you happened to have clicked this link already, run your computer’s anti-virus software to ensure your system has not been affected by a virus.

Please share this alert with your friends.

At the forefront of the masses is the ‘Osama Bin Laden is DEAD’ page with over 400,000 ‘likes’. The rapid increases by the minute in likes and wall posts are a true testimony to the power of social media and how easily we all interact via Facebook. Strangely enough, the page was set up before the official death announcement.  If you check the page’s Info, it reads:  “Osama Bin Laden has not been found and will never be found because he died a long time ago…Just remember, its impossible to find a dead person.” This theory seems to be irrelevant to the thousands of people using the wall to post news updates, photos, debates and general excitement over the world’s most notorious terrorist’s end.

The Osama Bin Laden Effect - Example of Scam

Be wary that competing with these posts is a never-ending string of scams, spam and malware. The circulation of these scams and hoaxes has grown exponentially in the past week. Within hours of the official announcement, we saw a gruesome image of a man’s head claiming to be the dead Osama Bin Laden circulated that was proven not to be real and several videos claiming to be the official death. In the past week, countless more have appeared.

Be careful of all links to photos or videos concerning Bin Laden and his death. If you are certain a post is spam, click the ‘x’ in the corner of the post which will give you the option to ‘Mark as Spam’ or ‘Report Abuse’. Please trust only those links that come from verified news agencies to avoid these scams and those that appear in the future.

According to Facebook Security, “In three separate complaints, we allege that Steven Richter, Jason Swan, and Max Bounty, Inc. used Facebook to offer enticing, but non-existent products and services. According to our complaints, the defendants, among other things, represented that in order to qualify for certain fake or deceptive offers, people had to spam their friends, sign up for automatic mobile phone subscription services, or provide other information. We claim that by doing this, they violated the U.S. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM), and other state and federal laws.”

Facebook is seeking compensatory, statutory and punitive damages from each of the three parties named in the lawsuits.

Examples of this type of spam/scam are the countless “Free FarmVille Cash”, “500 Mafia Wars Rewards Points, and “66×66 FarmVille Expansion” fan pages we see almost daily on our walls.

Richter is alleged to have created more than 40 Facebook profiles and over 40 Facebook pages, all designed to lure 388,000 users to various third-party sites. He is estimated to have earned 44 cents for each Facebook user he duped.

Let’s do the math: 388,000 x $0.44 = $170,720.00

Swan allegedly harvested Facebook user data by tricking users into participating in various online quizzes and surveys. You have most likely see a variety of them appear on your news feed; “Take the IQ Challenge”, “Which 7 Deadly Sin Are You” and “Are you Stressed?” He is also accused of encouraging Facebok users to spam each other by luring them to copy and paste a piece of java script code into their browsers. This snippet of code automatically blasts a message to all of the user’s friends.

Max Bounty, one of many CPA (Cost Per Action) affiliate marketing firms, is alleged to be behind the schemes of both Richter and Swan. The lawsuit filed by Facebook is alleging that Max Bounty encouraged their affiliates to set up fake Facebook profiles and pages for the purposes of luring Facebook users.

Facebook holds the record for the two largest judgments in the history of the CAN-SPAM Act. In October 2009, Facebook won a $711 million dollar judgement against spammer Sanford Wallace. In 2008, an $873 million judgment against Adam Guerbuez was a awarded when he was found guilty of sending out more than 4 million pornographic spam messages over Facebook.

In an attempt to encourage Facebook users to be vigilant and learn the skills necessary to protect themselves online, Facebook has teamed up with the National Cyber Security Alliance, the Anti-Phishing Working Group, and the Stop. Think. Connect. public awareness campaign, by offering the Stop. Think. Connect. Security Quiz.

I encourage you to take the quiz and test your knowledge. Once you’re done, post a badge to your Wall and share tips with your friends so they too can become more aware.

The application, developed by TopFBGames.com, is highly suspect and is virally making its rounds to players news feeds. Like most of these deceptive apps, it promises “100′s of neighbors in minutes”, bigger homesteads faster, free FrontierVille gifts and even “Free animals to adopt using our secret FrontierVille link”. The last promise is quite amusing, since animal adoptions are not yet a part of FrontierVille play.

The tempting news feed post looks like the following:

Once you click the link to find out more, you are taken to a Facebook app page full of RockYou temptations. Buried inside these, you will find the details of the toolbar/group called Frontier Helper:

Once you click “get the Frontier Helper Toolbar” box, you will be prompted to allow the application access to your profile and the ability to post to your wall.

If you allow permissions to Frontier Helper, the application silently posts numerous status updates to your friends encouraging them to also install the app.

These numerous status updates, with a pre-populated message claiming that “hey this really works”, is the root cause of the app spreading rapidly. Within my own news feed, I have noted the status updates appearing from the same friend as close as 2 minutes apart, and six times within 1 hour.

Any application that hijacks your status updates this often, and pre-populates one of those scammy “hey this works” messages, should be highly suspect.

How To Remove Frontier Helper

If you have already allowed access to Frontier Helper, you will want to go to Account –> Application Settings –> Recently Used and click the x that appears to the right of the Frontier Helper application. You will also want to remove the toolbar from your browser. Reports and reviews are claiming it significantly slows down your browser capabilities, as well as the game. I love FrontierVille, but it certainly does not need any further sluggishness!

In addition to Christopher Butterfield and Jennifer Christina Smith, other known names included in this hoax are Claudia Rivalta, Daniela Mainardi, and Simon Ashton. I am sure there are dozens more floating around as well, but will appear something similar to:

Do not accept a friend request from a CHRISTOPHER BUTTERFIELD and JENNIFER CHRISTINA SMITH they are hackers. Tell all on your list because if somebody on your list adds them, they’ll be on your list too. They’ll figure out ur computer’s ID and address, so copy & paste this message to everyone even if u don’t care for them cause if he hacks them, he hacks you. Be careful.

As you can see, the message warns that by accepting a “friend request” from Christopher Butterfield (or whatever other name is used), not only allows him or her to hack into your computer and gain access to your email account, but also the accounts of anyone on your friends list. The warning has been circulating rapidly through Facebook, other social networking websites, and by email.

This is technically impossible. Hackers (or crackers) use a variety of ways to trick you into giving them access to your computer or personal information. They may send a phishing email coercing info from you, or they may trick you into downloading something that installs trojan software, allowing your computer to be controlled remotely. But, even the best hackers cannot get into your system simply by being on your friends list. There has to be an exchange of information, or the transfer of a file in order for this to happen.

Unfortunately, it is hoaxes such as these, where people feel it is better to be safe than sorry, that turn us jaded and suspicious of all ‘pass it on’ messages. This inadvertently affects truly important valid messages and warnings from being sent to friends.

Be cautious of sending things on to friends. A 30 second Google search on a section of the warning will almost always let you know if it is real, or simply another silly hoax.

Facebook Security itself recently posted the following statement, proving that any sort of advertised “Profile Spy” does not work, nor can work. The functionality required for an application such as this work has been disabled by Facebook developers.

Here is what they have to say:

On Facebook, there’s no way to see who has visited your profile. We’ve also prevented others from providing this functionality. We’re working hard to block and remove websites, Pages, and applications that claim to do this. If you see one, don’t be fooled, and report it to us immediately.

This therefore includes such sites out there as profilespy.info. (I have intentionally not linked to the domain but feel free to visit it if you wish!) The page redirects visitors to an on-page application called Facebook Profile Snitch. I strongly do not recommend you enter your email address into the box provided. The name of the domain you are redirected to (theblackboxproject) is suspect enough and should raise red flags to those who noticed. The app is most likely some form of email harvesting, most likely redirecting you again to some sort of paid survey set up.

Hopefully the actions of Facebook Security will help reduce the number of deceptive groups and apps from popping up. I honestly suspect it will not though, as there just seems to be so many people out there who really do want to see who is looking at their profile

Source: http://www.facebook.com/security

The virus spreads simply by 1 person clicking a “Like” button on any of the affected pages. Since we all see updates in our status feeds about people, places and things our friends ‘like’, curiosity gets the better of many, and they too click to check it out.

Here is a short list of groups/videos/pages as a sample of what is enticing people to click:

“LOL This girl gets OWNED after a POLICE OFFICER reads her STATUS MESSAGE.”

“This man takes a picture of himself EVERYDAY for 8 YEARS!!”

“The Prom Dress That Got This Girl Suspended From School.”

“This Girl Has An Interesting Way Of Eating A Banana, Check It Out!”

Once you click on any of the above links, you arrive on a blank page that instructs you to “Click To Continue”. According to sophos.com, that page is infected by a virus called Troj/Iframe-ET. As soon as you click it, it automatically posts a silly spammy message to your wall, enticing your friends to view the video/link/group too.

How To Stop The Spread:

If you’ve been clickjacked, view your Facebook profile page and delete any status messages there that you yourself did not post. Don’t forget to delete the one that says you like the link. This will remove the update from not only your profile page, but the news feeds of all your friends.

How To Avoid Clickjacking:

Be vigilant about what you click. If you are brought to a blank page with just 1 link on it, that alone should be suspect.

Noticeably, the one line updates that used to appear on our profile pages when we clicked the like button of a friends post, are no longer there. If this was a decision made by Facebook to help combat the virus is unknown at this time.