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Watch Out for Fake Facebook Groups -- They Can Lead to Trouble

by Tim Stevens on March 27, 2009 at 02:35 PM

Fake Facebook Groups Could Lead to Trouble

If you're a Facebook user, there's a strong chance that you've accepted a group invitation from a friend or wondered why so many people have joined 'Brahsome' or 'AM3R!CAN Id0l 4EVAH.' As we've seen in the past, there are groups for everything from parents to retail bashing. They're all in good fun, usually, but some have been found to be a little more malicious. ZDNet's Jennifer Leggio discovered one such shady group that directed users to install an application purporting to be a new Facebook chat tool, but was actually just another search toolbar.

The app itself was found to be generally benign, not delivering any viruses or malware, but the bigger issue was that over a million Facebook users had signed up and, presumably, downloaded the tool thinking it was an official release. The network did take the group offline, but only after Leggio brought it to their attention, making her (and us) wonder what other shady groups are out there and what they might be distributing (Conficker, anyone?). Suffice to say, don't sign up for any groups that tell you to download something, especially when they use the poor grammar exemplified in the above screenshot. [From: ZDNet]

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Tags: facebook, facebook group, facebook groups, FacebookGroup, FacebookGroups, group, security, social networking, SocialNetworking, top

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