Facebook Antivirus application is a spammy mess

by Steve Ragan - Mar 29 2010, 22:35

There is a new junk application making rounds on Facebook. While not Malware, this so called Facebook Antivirus tags photos, spamming itself across the network. Again, this is more annoying than malicious, and Facebook users should avoid it.

As you see in the image below, the Facebook Antivirus completely copies the look of Panda Cloud Antivirus to pass itself off as legit.

(Image courtesy of The Facebook Insider)

Most people impacted by this spammy application never clicked an ad or permission button; they were a friend of a friend and were pulled in to this mess as the application tagged images with random names from the friends list.

Once installed to a profile on Facebook, the application will tag an image of itself with the names of twenty people from a person's friends list. From there, people see that they have been tagged, and as is the case for most, click to see the image.

The image has a link, which at a glance, looks completely random. Follow that link and you will be presented with an option to allow the application access to your profile. If you allow it, the spammy actions repeat themselves.

In the end, it is possible to see your photo album turned into this.

(Image courtesy of F-Secure)

When you or a friend uses an application, you will grant it access to almost everything on your profile. Adding to this, the developers of applications on Facebook have no privacy policy enforcement to keep them inline. All that is required is that they follow Facebook’s Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy.

After Facebook made changes to privacy controls, the applications section lost a lot of power. Thanks to the “publically available information” rule, you will hand over your Name, Profile Picture, Gender, Current City, Networks, Friend List, Pages, and information set to Everyone in your profile. [More information on application privacy is here.]

Concerning the Facebook Antivirus problem, removing your tag from the photo seems to be the best bet to resolve it. Just remember not to allow applications such as this access to your account. Likewise, be cautious with any application you add to your profile.

Facebook is tracking down and removing all traces of Facebook Antivirus, as well as alternate names such as Antivirus in Focebook and F'acebook antivirus (note the misspellings). For this reason, many people have reported issues with removing tags.

If you cannot remove the tag, contact Facebook, as they are aware of the issue.

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