Sunday, July 24, 2011

The Facebook Series #5: Spam Links



There's an easy way to find out if a link your friend posted is spam/trojan or not. Take a look at the URL.

Let's take the most recent free KFC for a week one as an example. The URL posted was addchicken.com . You'll notice that there is no "KFC" in the URL given. Further, as this is supposedly an offer for Singapore thus there should be a .sg behind as well (in case you didn't know KFC exist in more than one country). Also, it is wise to look at what the offer is. Do you really think KFC will let you eat everything for free for one entire week?

The other spider-under-girl's-skin link is obviously a spam link as well. The URL often has really weird domains such as that ending with .info .

Sometimes, using your brain before clicking on a link just because it looks interesting helps. Spam links are getting more common these days. Just clicking on them makes you repost it automatically. Even if you remove them from your wall, your friends will still see it. While such backdoor trojan are used to hack into your account (password, friends list or whatever), I haven't heard of a major problem arising from clicking such links but you'll never know.

If you did not find my post hiding a "hint" of sarcasm, you are probably one of those who blindly click on links. I'm blocking you.

1 comment:

DeeJay said...

Thanks for the heads up...Great site and quote about using a bit of brain before clicking links.