There is a new malicious virus making the rounds on Facebook and through emails, this time under the guise of your friend’s photography. According to our friends at Sophos, here is what the email says:

“Greetings,

One of Your Friends added a new photo with you to the album.

You are receiving this email because you’ve been listed as a close friend.

[View photo with you in the attachment]”

The email purports to be from Facebook, but is of course actually from hackers pretending to represent the company. Last month, Sophos detected a similar virus that was disguised in photographs. However, in the previous virus, the sender misidentified “Facebook” as “Faceboook,” with three O’s, but the slight typo isn’t very noticeable if you’re reading fast.

“Even if you didn’t notice that ‘Faceboook’ was spelled incorrectly, you could have seen by hovering your mouse over the link that it wasn’t going to take you directly to the genuine Facebook website,” Sophos said at the time.

It’s ultimately, if somewhat unfortunately, up to responsible Internet users to wise up and educate themselves to avoid these scams and viruses. Socially engineered attacks like this are on the rise and always active on social networks in some capacity. If something seems suspicious to you, simply don’t open it and report it. These are easy mistakes to avoid, yet hackers take advantage of people’s trust of the social networking giant to spread viruses and other malware. Just remember: if it looks like a scam, it probably is.

Recommended Resources

BitDefender Safego is a Facebook application you can install that will scan your News Feed and help keep you safe from scams on Facebook.

PRIVATE WiFi® is a Personal VPN that encrypts everything you send and receive. Don’t access Facebook from a public WiFi hotspot without it.

Do Not Track + is a FREE browser plugin created by Abine. This easy to install plugin keeps websites from tracking you. If you value your online privacy, then you should definitely take advantage of this free product.

Action Alert | Free Parental Control offers a 100% free Internet safety solution designed for parents. There is also a Maximum Protection option for parents that need a more advanced set of tools.