The “White Gift Box” Farmville virus warning – debunked

A rumour is spreading across Facebook that warns Farmville players of a “white gift box surrounded by blue lace” since it is a virus.

An example of the warning can be seen below.

ATTENTION :: EVERY FARMVILLE NEIGHBOR – THERE IS A WHITE GIFT BOX surrounded by a blue lace. It says “someone has sent you a gift” … IT ISN’T BEING SENT BY FARMVILLE !!! IT’S A VIRUS!!! PLEASE DO NOT OPEN…. PLEASE COPY A PASTE THIS ON YOUR WALL SO THAT WE CAN ALL PROTECT EACH OTHER

Despite the apparent urgency of the warning and it imploring readers to share it onto their own Facebook walls, the warning is actually baseless. It first began spreading back in 2010 when the Farmville app was at the height of its popularity.

Back then a number of fake warnings were spreading about popular apps at the time, including Farmville and Mafia Wars. However none of them were clearly written, nor did they appear to describe any genuine threats.

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The main issue with this warning is that it is vaguely worded. It doesn’t describe exactly how Farmville players will encounter this supposed “white box”. Is it via an email, a chat message or will it appear inside the app itself? If it is the latter, then that would suggest the Farmville app itself had become compromised in a way where cyber criminals can plant links to viruses within the app itself, which is highly unlikely.

In 2010 there was no legitimacy to the warning, and there certainly isn’t now. Zynga – the developers of Farmville and it’s (now) more popular successor Farmville 2 – haven’t issued any kind of warning for any of its apps that match the description in the warning above, thus it should not be circulated as genuine.

However, always be on the watch out for any kind of communication that appears to be from Farmville like emails or chat messages, as these can indeed lead to external websites laden with malware.