A virus scam is reported to be spreading on the social networking giant, Facebook. The scam message titled – “Wow!! do you remember this photo?” has a link attached to it, which leads users’ to a bogus webpage, and automatically downloads a malware program on the user’s computer.

In this scam, the scammer is trying to trick users by providing with a link that is made to look like an image file. This is done by ending the link with “img”. Unaware users blindly click on links like this, which leads to automatic download of malware programs.

Clicking on the link provided will take users to malicious website, and the following warning message was displayed when folk at Facecrooks tested the link -

These malware programs are designed to gather user’s data, like personal details and financial credentials, which are then sent to scammers. The scammer might make use of your information to hack into your accounts, or misuse your financial data online. It is advised that you change passwords of all your accounts if in case you have clicked on the above mentioned scam link.

I suggest you to remove the scam from your news feed by clicking on the Xmark on the top-right corner of the post. Alternatively you can report the scam to the  Facebook Security team.

Please note that scams like this use multiple domain and different web pages. You may see variations in the landing pages, but they are all the same.

There have been a number of similar scams that were reportedly spreading on Facebook earlier. It often becomes a difficult task to judge whether a post of Facebook is a scam or not. It is advised that you avoid clicking on any links that you come across on Facebook and other social networking sites. That way, you are at least on the safer side.

As a precautionary measure, always check which applications you use and remove unwanted or suspicious ones. If you aren’t sure how to do it, you can always check our guide on  removing apps from Facebook. In addition to that, don’t forget to check out our article about  Avoiding Facebook Lifejacking and Clickjacking scams.

Bookmark  Techie Buzz Facebook Scams. We always keep you updated with the  latest scams spreading on Facebook.

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