Facebook gets hit by ‘texting’ status scam


11 Oct 2010

A scam is spreading across Facebook, posting messages about texting on users’ walls without their knowledge in order to get more clicks.

The scam began over the weekend, with spam messages reading: “OMG! Im never going to send another text message again after seeing this!” with a link at the end of the status update.

This link directed users to rogue pages, where they were asked to click on an image.

This asked them to give the application access to their profile data and permission to post on their walls.

This current version of the scam has stopped, but a similar one has begun, reading “OMG! Im not txtin again now that I have seen this!” with a link at the end.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at security vendor Sophos, said that the texting Facebook scam has been used before.

Affected users should go to the Applications settings in the Accounts option, set the Show filter to “Authorised,” and remove any application they don’t recognise to get rid of it.