Facebook announces a new tool for fighting malware in collaboration with Kaspersky Lab
On Tuesday, Facebook announced that it has been using a new security tool that assists in finding and eliminating malicious software for users of the world’s biggest social network.
The company said that it was working with Kaspersky Lab to help a program put into effect with other online security firms including F-Secure, ESET and Trend Micro.
Trevor Pottinger, a Facebook security engineer said “Thanks to the collaboration with these companies, in the past three months we have helped clean up more than two million people’s computers that we detected were infected with malware when they connected to Facebook.”
“In these cases, we present a cleanup tool that runs in the background while you continue using Facebook, and you get a notification when the scan is done to show you what it found.”
Pottinger said the program uses “a combination of signals to help find infections and get the malware off of your computer for good, even if the malware isn’t actively spreading spam or harmful links.”
Facebook users are often aimed in online fraud schemes such as “phishing,” which are fake emails that are created to make the recipients of the email to download malware, Kate Kochetkova of Kaspersky Lab posted in a separate blog post.
“Facebook is a major aim for phishers: one in five phishing scams targets Facebook notifications. So be vigilant when you receive emails appearing to be from Facebook: as they can be fake. There are lots of Trojans targeting Facebook users as well,” she said.
Fraudsters may also use Facebook, Kochetkova said, to “‘like’ weird things and promote questionable goods and services on your behalf.”
