Wednesday, March 30, 2011

FACEBOOK UPDATE

Last week, we erred on the side of caution and reported that some people were attacked by a virus when they tried to log into the social website Facebook.
Since then, we have had more reports from friends and other sources, but they do not all agree with each other.
If Facebook is under some kind of computer attack, they are the last ones to admit it. The news, good or bad, has yet to make any of the main media sources that one would usually frequent to stay up to date.
Therefore, we are once again erring on the side of caution and are reporting on the situation just in case.
Apparently, any attacks to potential Facebook users are at random.

Going to the home page and attempting to log in earns one of three results:
1. Absolutely nothing happens and you go on to the Facebook website proper with no ill effects.
2. You get a message that you have erred somehow and are asked to enter your data. THIS ONE IS DEFINITELY A TRAP! The error message is posted by a party/parties unknown as an attempt to get your personal data to enter Facebook pretending to be you for reasons that will benefit no one but themselves.
3. You are automatically attacked, like the initial reports that generated our first warning.

Unfortunately, we are getting more reports of instance #2 than anything else, although instance #1 does outnumber instance #3.
Still, the staff and management of The Free Choice E-zine are dependent upon our computers for far more than just surfing the Internet, and thus are unwilling to risk our own terminals to verify this data first hand for ourselves.

People who have become victims of the virus attack have had to have their systems completely wiped/cleaned and reformatted; and as stated, no one with The Free Choice E-zine can afford to be without our computers for any extended period of time, let alone cover the expense of the repair bill.

We certainly do not wish those connected with Facebook any ill will and hope this situation is corrected soon. If anyone in an official capacity with the social website can contact this E-zine and let us know what is going on from their perspective, The Free Choice will be more than happy to share that information with our readers.
If these reports are in error, we will be more than happy to post the appropriate retraction(s).
But if the story is accurate, please remember that we did try to warn you.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If you use the following site to log in, you will be safe and secured every time:
https://www.facebook.com
There will be a little lock icon in the address bar proving this.
Otherwise, I don't know what is going on there myself.
Why would anyone waste their time hacking anyway?