Facebook Bolsters Security With Its New Tool That Removes Malicious Software

Social networking giant Facebook announced on June 23 that it has been using a new security tool that will spot out and remove malicious software for Facebook users, according to reports.

According to a report on AFP, Facebook is working with Kaspersky Lab, strengthening a program implemented with other online security firms like ESET, F-Secure and Trend Micro.

"Thanks to the collaboration with these companies, in the past three months we have helped clean up more than two million people's computers that we detected were infected with malware when they connected to Facebook," the AFP report quoted Trevor Pottinger, a Facebook security engineer, as saying.

"In these cases, we present a cleanup tool that runs in the background while you continue using Facebook, and you get a notification when the scan is done to show you what it found,” Pottinger explained AFP further.

As per Pottinger, the program uses a combination of signals to figure out infections and get the malware out of the user’s computer, even if the malware does not contribute much in spreading spam or harmful links.

A report on Digit quoted Kaspersky Lab’s Kate Kochetkova saying that Facebook was a major roaming ground for phishers as one in five phishing scams appear as Facebook notifications. If users end up clicking on a wrong link that has been sent through a fake account, it can infect their PC. Now if the PC is infected and Facebook has detected suspicious behaviour from user’s account, they (users) will be prompted with the following warning page.

According to a report on Forbes, last month Facebook had launched a ‘Security Check Up’ tool that enables users to change their password, setup login alerts and cleanup login sessions. Facebook launched this initiative to prevent hackers from breaking into accounts.

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