In the past hour, a new application has begun spreading on Facebook that takes advantage of the existing sharing system. Whatever you do, don’t click the link described below.
The system is pretty straightfrward. It suggests that you click “VERIFY MY ACCOUNT” within a link which ultimately results in the user posting the same message to all their friends’ walls. The message typically resembles the following one:
In order to PREVENT SPAM, I ask that you VERIFY YOUR ACCOUNT. Click VERIFY MY ACCOUNT right next to comment below to start the process…
The result is that thousands of users have seen the message spreading to their profiles in the past hour or so. Our guess is that this message could reach hundreds of thousands of users before it’s shut down (unless Facebook’s security team is up right now). The bottom line is this: don’t click any of the links resembling the ones pictured below.
Have you seen this spreading across your news feed?
Yep. I was forewarned and have been warning all my friends.
Comment by John — May 12, 2011 @ 2:29 am
wait how do I verify this….
Comment by @seajhay — May 12, 2011 @ 2:32 am
Ive got lots of friends posting these links all over the past 2 hours!! Facebook has gone totally crazy!!!
Comment by Corey — May 12, 2011 @ 2:32 am
If I did click it does the app leave anything on my computer? What do I need to do?
Comment by victor wasylczenko — May 12, 2011 @ 2:33 am
IT DIDN'T SEEM TO MATTER THAT IT WASN'T CLICKED ON MY PAGE, I WASN'T EVEN ON MY OWN PAGE WHEN IT SPREAD THROUGHOUT MY ENTIRE FRIENDS LIST.
Comment by anonymous — May 12, 2011 @ 2:34 am
It appears Facebook reacted very quickly on this problem. All "Verify Request" have been removed. Some parts of Facebook are not available…. I suspect as this problem is 'scrubbed".
Comment by Gene — May 12, 2011 @ 2:34 am
There's another one that says, "Fuck you faggot. Go kill yourself. Vote for Nicole Santos. I hate you and the only way to remove all these posts is by disabling this below." And has a "Remove this app" link to spread it.
Comment by @JEFFin140 — May 12, 2011 @ 2:35 am
This certainly answers my question about that being some kind of scam. I made the mistake of clicking on that and saw that it had been reposted to all my Facebook friends.
Comment by Daniel Cavanaugh — May 12, 2011 @ 2:36 am
Yep, got it half a dozen times in the past hour or so… Thrice from one friend…
If there's a learning curve for this kind of stuff, I've yet to see it.
Comment by Janae — May 12, 2011 @ 2:36 am
There is another one as well.
It says: "Fuck you faggot. Go kill yourself. Vote for Nicole Santos. I hate you and the only way to remove all these posts is by disabling this below."
It then says "Like · · See friendship · Remove This App.
Comment by Malcolm Grant — May 12, 2011 @ 2:38 am
I just viewed two ads on your page, do the same on our site
http://www.andersonsbcc.com/businessit
Comment by que — May 12, 2011 @ 2:39 am
There's also another one now!!! Quote: "Fuck you faggot. Go kill yourself. Vote for Nicole Santos. I hate you and the only way to remove all these posts is by disabling this below." then the exact same link via Iphone.
Comment by cheryl — May 12, 2011 @ 2:39 am
Thanks!!
Comment by Roz — May 12, 2011 @ 2:43 am
I hate to see what these people are like when they are getting slammed for real when they are older in 50 years.
Comment by Thomas — May 12, 2011 @ 2:43 am
There's also another one going around, though it's pretty vulgar. I hope they fix it soon…my entire newsfeed is nothing but this.
Comment by Melissa — May 12, 2011 @ 2:46 am
How do you remove, and fix it?
Comment by Beans — May 12, 2011 @ 2:46 am
ok.. now what do we do if we DID click on it???
Comment by lizabet — May 12, 2011 @ 2:49 am
Aaand there is a second Scam going around posting an offensive message on walls and ends with a link to "Remove This App"
Comment by heyDarren — May 12, 2011 @ 2:49 am
Theres also a really offensive one going around now too that says "Go fuck yourself faggot. Go kill yourself. Fucking Die"….. I don't know why these are suddenly happening but its getting nasty
Comment by k.pickles — May 12, 2011 @ 2:49 am
I have been a victim of this but, what astonishes me is that the process does not require a user to give any permission to the app. As soon as I opened, a pop-up was revealed and I immediately closed the tab without even reading what was written. I opened Facebook again, happy to have avoided a spam but, I was shocked to see that almost all of my friend list was sent this message. But, soon all of them vanished, I guess, thanks to Facebook.
Again I would like to stress on my question, how was the app able to send the message to my friends when I did not even give it the permission to do so.
Is it a security hole on the part of Facebook?
Comment by Shabbir Akhtar — May 12, 2011 @ 2:51 am
I DID NOT CLICK it but it still spammed my friends.
I commented on it telling the poster it was spam
Comment by tams — May 12, 2011 @ 2:51 am
by mistake,i clicked on 'verify my account'.is there any way 2 get d normal profile back so tht i can view my most recents??
Comment by jagjit singh — May 12, 2011 @ 2:56 am
Facebook has fixed this exploit as of Wednesday, May 11, 2011 at 11:57 PM PST.
Comment by Jimmy Tran — May 12, 2011 @ 2:57 am
it's not an app. it's a hack
Comment by guest — May 12, 2011 @ 2:59 am
It's not an application, but rather a string of code that works without any permissions. It just pastes itself into your URL bar, and executes itself.
Comment by guestAnon — May 12, 2011 @ 2:59 am
i didn't even open ANY of these and cannot remove it off my wall. i changed my password 3x and account settings, can't even ID as spam. it's horrid alright!
Comment by willow — May 12, 2011 @ 3:01 am
I was spammed with a homophobic wall post that had a "Remove This App" link at the bottom. The link starts a script that spams random people in the friend's list.
Comment by @gruffbear — May 12, 2011 @ 3:08 am
instead of doing that click on the x and report to facebook
Comment by Kinance — May 12, 2011 @ 3:12 am
Didn't even click a link and somehow got hacked apparently…
Comment by Fuss-Cheatham — May 12, 2011 @ 3:16 am
People who were fisht are a bunch of n00bs!
Comment by @AcmePhoto — May 12, 2011 @ 3:21 am
I saw TONS of this spam on my News Feed from other people within the last hour. When I look at my News Feed now, though, it only goes back 43 minutes ago, and then it tells me there are no more posts after that. Also, I have the notifications that say a few friends wrote on my wall (I know its the spam) and it has a little icon of what looks to be a black remote? but there's nothing from them on my wall. I'm assuming Facebook is handling it all right now
Pretty crazy stuff!
Comment by Shelly — May 12, 2011 @ 3:27 am
The scam that sends a vulgar message just happened to me 10 minutes ago…I was shocked…I got one from annother friend of mine on my page..the message was very vulgar and then said the only way to get rid of it was to deleete the app..when I clicked it . it inturn sent the same filthy message to everyone on my friends list..my minister included…sheesh!!..Just dont click on" deleete app" should it pop up on you page..cheers!
Comment by vickie — May 12, 2011 @ 3:28 am
i was about to inform you guys about this spam….good & rapid work guys!!!
Comment by greenpeace — May 12, 2011 @ 3:31 am
i wanna know how they sent everyone a message… ive been trying to get a legitamte application to do that all day haha
Comment by mee — May 12, 2011 @ 3:34 am
i just posted a share telling my friends not to post or share or copy into the addy bar and I got a message saying i shouldnt do that…which i didnt…did you guys get jacked too? should check
Comment by mick_slick — May 12, 2011 @ 3:35 am
I tried to delete the post and for that I was a victim too and so was my entire friends list, this is humilating and distastful, I do not want to lose my account because of trying to get rid of this mess, plz help all of us that are victims here, the vulgar things in the one I tried to delete were unacceptable to be on my page, that is all I was doing was trying to get rid of it!!!
Comment by Darlene — May 12, 2011 @ 3:36 am
i have been a victtim to it as welll i had 15 of those messages on my page when i logged it i tried to delete it but it wouldn,t and got sent out and i a a disabled slow learner with a care giver and don,t understand how this can happen i there fore sent a email to facebook office which i was adviised to do this needs to stop so innocent people dont get blamed. or banned for something that wasn,t thetr fault.
Comment by sandy — May 12, 2011 @ 3:36 am
Shabbir, It is not a security hole in facebook. More a problem with the amount of idiots that use facebook. The latest wave off spam hitting facebook (Today) was developed using JavaScript which is a client side programming language, all web browsers and OS support javascript. Javascript has the ability to send and retrieve information from websites without the need to reload the webpage using a technique called AJAX. This is what has happened today. A user clicks a link, which contains the javascript code which then silently executes and sends the message to all of your friends walls without your knowledge. I think facebook would have more luck restricting idiots from using its services, than trying to tackle the problem of spam head on.
Comment by Anon — May 12, 2011 @ 3:37 am
@heyDarren yea I've just encountered the 'Remove This App' spam an hour ago… I am shocked at how Facebook Security has let this happen..
Comment by micheal — May 12, 2011 @ 3:46 am
pay attention, you can tell it takes you to a fake FaceBook page. People are idiots.
Comment by heywood jablome — May 12, 2011 @ 3:57 am
Indeed, it was ANOTHER FB security breech …announced on the Nightly News Wednesday night! Suggestion: change PW. FB needs to get their act together. Took many security risks with being associated with their platform!
Comment by Cyndy White — May 12, 2011 @ 4:19 am
Yep, You can thank facebook for the security vulnerability. You can also thank them for how easy it is for a harmful individual to go through spamming all of your friends. If you dont know code I will make it simple for you.
for(var i=0; i<friends.length; i++){ // do something here}
For every friend in your friend list
do something to the current one
continue until complete.
Comment by Gavin — May 12, 2011 @ 4:28 am
Thanks! I'm glad I'm reading it before receiving those messages
Comment by Tim Soulo — May 12, 2011 @ 4:52 am
i don't think it was an app. it wasnt listed in my previously used apps list. i changed my password.
I was infected by one saying "$%^ING KILL YOURSELF"
i wonder how they did this.
Comment by luy — May 12, 2011 @ 4:54 am
i want my zynga poker
Comment by thiruzack — May 12, 2011 @ 5:17 am
I'm wondering why people are clicking on every link without checking it out, but knowing that Facebook is knows as a VIRUS and HACKER attack aim.
Comment by Astrid — May 12, 2011 @ 6:35 am
People are idiots.
Comment by MPH — May 12, 2011 @ 7:54 am
Looks like they have it controlled now.
Comment by pelliot — May 12, 2011 @ 10:01 am
Thanks for the heads up..What is going on with all these fake apps lately? I do not play ANY games, or use barely any apps b/c of viruses and now I have to worry that by clicking on a link I may be putting all my friends and my info at risk. There has to be some way Facebook can make developers prove that they are legit. Am I right?
Comment by @najardr — May 12, 2011 @ 10:31 am
When I try to share this warning on f/b, I get the following pop-up block:-
Account safety
It looks like a link that you pasted into your address bar caused unintentional activity on your Facebook account.
The link may have looked like this:
javascript:(a=b=document)…;void(0)
Don’t worry, your account is safe. In the future, never paste suspicious-looking links or text into your
address bar. They could cause spam on your account.
If you did not intend to do this, please click Cancel.
Its implying that its YOUR warning link is the actual spam????
Marcella
Comment by Marcella — May 12, 2011 @ 10:39 am
This one got me too and sent it to people on my friends list.
Comment by Dianne — May 12, 2011 @ 11:00 am
I was one of the first ones hit & clicked on it! Within seconds, most of my friends had received it from me! I couldn't delete it from the feed, so I spent a long time going to everyone of my 200 friend's profiles to delete it from their page. What a nightmare!!
Comment by Pamela McKain — May 12, 2011 @ 11:40 am
verify my account
Comment by dennis gutierrez — May 12, 2011 @ 5:43 pm
when will i used my account
Comment by dennis gutierrez — May 12, 2011 @ 5:47 pm
click here
Comment by sss — May 13, 2011 @ 1:25 am
where is the source of this verification? my friend havent verify its account yet..
Comment by Ram — May 13, 2011 @ 9:44 am
i gave my number on that site and i think thats the reason why my loads are stolen and it keep saying that i receive a 2 credits but the truth is none .. what should i do ? help me please ?
Comment by lyka — May 29, 2011 @ 7:38 am
I DID NOT LOG IN TO FACEBOOK USING ANOTHER COMPUTER SOMEONE MUST HAVE DONE IT SHOULD I CHANGE MY PASSWORD.ty
Comment by debbie cash — June 29, 2011 @ 2:49 pm
Hi folks,
Recently a Firefox add-on has been released which is designed to protect you against those scams while you're Facebook.
So… you Firefox users are luckily
More info at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fa...
Cheers!
Comment by diegocr — July 21, 2011 @ 1:59 pm
verify my account plz plz
Comment by faraz — September 11, 2011 @ 1:07 pm