How To Avoid Viruses On Social Media by James Brack

Online thieves and scammers are increasingly using social media to scam and hustle people out of private information and even money. This is due to people’s trust in links posted by their friends – but it has now started to filter through to people that there is a spam danger with links posted by friends.

Here are the Top 10 Basic Tips to Stay Spam and Malware Free on Social Networking Websites:


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• Be 100% sure that links are going to respectable websites by hovering over the link to check the web address.
• You might receive emails asking for your log-in details – but don’t enter your Facebook login anywhere other than Facebook.com.
• Use numbers and characters in passwords and don’t use words.  It is also recommended to change your password regularly.
• Ensure anti-virus software is installed. Run a scan every couple of days and keep it updated with the latest updates.
• Remove cookies.
• Don’t add people on Facebook that you don’t know – as scammers use fake profiles to spy on you. Unfollow people on Twitter if their tweets look “unhuman”.
• Using Wi-fi can be very spammy, as the security isn’t quite to the same level as a traditional connection. Don’t click on links in your inbox or in text messages you have received.
• Videos that claim to show the body of Osama Bin Laden or ‘My Ex-Girlfriend Cheated on me… Here is my revenge!’ posts are spam. Don’t click on them and delete immediately. There are lots of variables of these types of scams – so always do the “hover test” to see where the link goes.
• Remove spam and report suspicious looking links/posts.
• Browse the security sections, such as http://twitter.com/about/security and http://www.facebook.com/security, just to keep you up-to-date and aware of things to avoid.

If you have clicked on a link that you think is malware, then immediately change your password, delete the post/uninstall the app, tell the social media website that you suspect that a post is spam, and run a full virus scan on your computer.

This guest post was written by James Brack

James Brack is a regular contributor to blogs on the topic of search engine optimization, social media security, and computer and mobile forensics

This Post was written by James Brack for http://netlz1.wordpress.com