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Security Protection - Harry Waldron (CS)

Security Best Practices, Breaking News, & Updates

Facebook - Be careful with the LIKE button on URLs

One popular trend that is increasing in Facebook is for a one line statement (that is hyperlinked) for a popular or religious phrase to be show up under the NewsFeed that a FRIEND has selected (with the LIKE button available). 

In early usage of Facebook, I had even even selected a few of these.  Later, I discovered they are difficult to remove from LIKE lists later on.  While these links may or may not be malicious, the linked sites can contain extensive advertising rather than supporting the theme noted by the link. I've stopped selecting these a while back and the Internet Storm center also recently noted caution as noted below.

Facebook - Be careful with the LIKE button on URLs
http://isc.sans.edu/diary.html?storyid=9556

QUOTE:  I am seeing a trend on Facebook recently, and I am not sure what to make of it. As we all know just too well, Facebook has a "Like" feature. This feature, a little button associated with a post, allows you to show agreement with a post.  Lately however, I am seeing more and more posts like the following: (a hyperlinked phrase with a button)

Nobody has seen anything malicious from these URLs yet, so it appears to be just "Spam", maybe search engine optimization techniques to get these pages linked and ranked higher. A couple readers noted that unlike a regular "like", it is not so easy to remove these notes from your profile. You need to go to your "wall" page and remove them. You can not remove them like normal "Likes" from your "Newsfeed".