Nearly 600,000 Facebook users have fallen victim to a new Facebook application scam. Similar to previous attacks that notify the user that one of their friends has found a video with an “Oh, wow, is this you” message, the Photoshop scam is provocative users in the same way. This virus spreads through Facebook chat, instantly sending out similar messages to all of your friends, whether they are logged into chat or not.
The message tells users that a friend has made a Photoshop image of them and includes a link that prompts you to launch an application. The application is basically a phishing scam, prompting the user to grant access to their Facebook account (like most do), but also grants access to Facebook Chat. Once the application has been allowed, you have access to a gallery of people with their heads on animal bodies — none of which are you.
M86, who first reported the scam on their blog, says that it doesn’t seem like the virus is spreading malware, adware or spyware at this time, but the infectious virus is spreading quickly – at a rate of 90,000 clicks per hour.
The best thing to do is to neglect all applications of this kind, but if you have made the mistake of giving the application access to your Facebook data, you need to get rid of it. Notify your friends to let them know that it’s not a legit application so that they can ignore any messages from you. Go to your privacy settings page in Facebook and remove the application to prevent it from continuing to send out multiple messages or something more devious than a man-dog. You should also change the password to your Facebook account, just in case the application is storing the information to be used at a later date. This application may look benign in nature, there are very few of these things that spring up just to get a laugh.