Gadgetory

hey everyone I'm Sharon Vaknin for cnet.com and I'm here because we need to have a serious talk about Facebook criminals are getting really good at tricking you into clicking links to fake apps like ones that promise to show you exactly who is viewing your profile which will never happen by the way and then what happens is you click that link and depending on what kind of scam it is you can get a computer virus or spyware your passwords can get stolen hackers can extort money from you or you can turn into one of the annoying friends who unknowingly post spam on other people's walls don't be that person usually people get Facebook malware because they fell for a spammy wall post message or group I always know it's spam when I get sent a weird link from someone who I never talk to so if you're the least bit suspicious about a link don't click it hover over that post with your mouse and click the X in that menu click report as spam and Facebook will take it from there you can also do this if someone post spam as their status sometimes it will look like a normal status that says something like did you hear Facebook is finally getting a dislike button and then there will be a little link at the end of it again don't click it especially if it sounds too good to be true a lot of spammers will post shortened links using services like bitly so that you can't see the URL until you click it so if you ever see a shortened URL go to expand my url com paste it there and you'll get a safe preview of the link and then if you find out that it is spam hover over the post click the X and mark it as spam another way you can get in trouble is if you install a malicious app sometimes you don't find out until it's too late and the app has used your account to spam other people or add weird things to your profile if you think you've installed a bad app head to Facebook and go to account then privacy settings then go over to apps and websites and click edit your settings and then hit edit settings again next apps you use now you're finally at the page where you can delete apps just click the X next to any app you want to delete and while you're here delete apps you don't use because they probably have permission to access your personal information now if it's too late and your account has already been hacked or you think you might have malware there are a few things you can do first change your password right away you can do this by going to account then account settings just hit change to change your password make sure it's different than all your other passwords because if a hacker steals your Facebook password and it works for your email account he can use it to get into that to go to password meter comm to see if the passwords you're choosing or strong-enough a good password will have uppercase and lowercase letters at least one number and a special character like a question mark while you're in the account settings go down to account security and hit change enable secure browsing so that third parties can't hijack your Facebook session also get notified if someone logs into your account from a location that Facebook doesn't recognize because someone could be logging into your account without you knowing changing your password only fixes one type of hack other kinds will install malware like spyware or viruses on your computer whether or not you think you have malware you need to make sure you have an anti-virus program AVG is free and highly recommended by CNET also make sure you're updating your operating system Microsoft and Apple released security updates that fix vulnerabilities in your software for Windows go to start then head to programs and Windows Update on a Mac go to the Apple menu and select software update now that your software is up-to-date you've removed bad apps and fixed your Facebook settings you're already a lot safer do everybody a favor and ask your friends to do the same thing I seriously don't want to see another spammy update on my wall thank you and I'm glad we had this talk for CNET I'm Sharon Vaknin and I'll see you on the interwebs