The latest in a series of rogue Facebook application scams has been circulating the social networking site this week that claim to allow Facebook users to enable a Facebook Dislike button. This scam is almost identical to previous scams in how it spreads across the site.
Only a few weeks ago Facebook users were bombarded with requests claiming to allow a user to remove the controversial Facebook timeline. This latest scam – that asserts to enable a Facebook dislike button – works in an almost identical fashion.
Facebook users are drawn into the scam after seeing a notification appearing in the notifications menu at the top of their Facebook screen. The notification will appear to be from a Facebook friend. (see image below)
The scam appearing in the notifications menu helps trick more users
Clicking the notification takes you to the following screen –
Clicking enable takes a user to an application installation prompt
Clicking the “Enable Dislike” button takes the Facebook user to an application installation prompt that requests permission to install a Facebook application. Upon installation the first thing the Facebook application does is ask permission to send requests to all your Facebook friends. (see image below)
This results in the user spamming all of your friends with the same notification that the user encountered initially. In the instances we have seen users are forwarded to a page that requests they install a browser extension. We never recommend installing browser extensions from sources you do not trust as they can be malicious and result in malware infections.
The advice is always the same – never give Facebook applications permission to access your account unless you know and trust the source of the application. If you don’t trust the source of the application not only should you not install it, but NEVER send requests to install the application to all your Facebook friends!
As for the dislike button, we’ve said it before – Facebook does not have a dislike button, and probably won’t ever implement one. If they do, it certainly won’t rely on users having to install an application and spamming their friends with it.
If you installed the application you need to follow these instructions detailing how to remove it.
