It must be “My Week” for things happening. My laptop motherboard replacement is happening early in the week. And now…I some how managed to get an infected post on my Facebook Profile Wall. I got a notification and a message from two Facebook friends warning me of a possible infection. I found the link on my Profile and removed it. But how does this happen and what can we learn together?
I was visiting a friend’s Facebook Profile and I noticed the post on his wall. I noticed that he liked it. This guy is someone that I respect. It must be something good, I thought. Well I should have known better. There was a picture of a girl in a mini skirt. That should have been my first clue that trouble was ahead. I clicked the link to see what I could learn and bang. A pop up launched asking me to authenticate that I was a human being. I backed out of there, but the damage was done.
The virus had posted the same post that was on my friends Profile. I removed the post from my Profile as soon as I became aware of it. Juan from Lima, Peru and Shawn from New Brunswick notified me that something was wrong. The bottom line was this, I felt embarrassed that I had possible gotten infected and I was grieved that I may have infected others. And it only took one mouse click for this to happen.
The bottom line is this…”Be careful about what you click on”. No one is above falling for this tactic. It can happen to you.
So what can we do to prevent this?
- Be careful what you click on Facebook or anywhere else. Just because it is a hyper-link does not mean you have to click on it. Think before you click.
- Make sure that your anti-virus definitions are up to date and scan on a regular basis.
- Never think it can’t happen to you. It can and it will. We are not bullet proof.
- When you get infected, update your anti-virus and do a scan. Make sure you clear your cache as well. That removes temporary files from your web surfing.
I hope this never happens to you. But if it does, act and remove it. Try to limit the spread of the infection.
