Facebook has been hit with porn spam attack and here is our step by step guide to avoid shame by securing your timeline and save yourself from being part of this.
After a lot of time, Lets come back to Facebook. While Google+ and Twitter are other two major social networks, Facebook is still the top one in its category having 1.44 billion users active till March 2015.
After the Facebook updated their traditional profile to Timeline and support of Apps that anyone can publish the security factor has been always of concern.
A lot of Internet Activists have filed cases against Facebook for sharing their photos and media and lots of them are pending in courts of different country while some countries have banned Facebook in previous years like Bangladesh, China, United Kingdom, Germany and many other countries.
Porn Spam Attack
Now Facebook has another kind of problem which makes us feel very ashamed on social network in-front of friends and family. Yes, you got correct, we are talking about Porn Spam attack that has been viral again last few months. In this kind of problem, Facebook posts a video with porn screenshot and links to some site with video links. Not only this does the job, it also tags up to 20 of your friends and post on sites which means 20 other friends also have same video tagged in their profile and when someone visits their timeline, they get a porn video link in there too.
Let’s be clear with a screenshot.
In above screens, user has posted a video link by tagging his friends. But reality is the profile owner even don’t have visited his Facebook during this time. One someone clicks the video link; the site asks to install some plugins or extensions or apps on mobile and they make your life worse than hell.
How to be Secure from Porn Spam Attack
We discussed and understood the problem above. You can secure your profile from sending such spam posts by following below steps.
- Do not authorize any unknown Apps to post on behalf of you, Even if you want, set visibility to (you) me only by choosing Custom from Visibility in right bottom corner and select Only me.
- Never click on a video that you have been tagged or have similar nature. Remember, nobody uploads a porn video and tags you in a genuine post until you are in part of that industry.
- Never install any browser or Application on your mobile that says your device is hacked or you need a plugin to play this video.
- Always remove an app that seems suspicious or you have done with it. Visit Settings and Click on Apps link to show all apps. In below screenshot, we can see the permission of App’s posting rights. Like some of app has Public posting writes, some has Friends, and most have Only Me.
- If you un-authorize unwanted and un-trusted apps from accessing your timeline and posting on behalf of you, you can feel secure. However, always have a keen eye at Browsers as some of the browsers support unverified extensions which can cause damage.
- Enable Timeline Review from Timeline and Tagging settings, so if someone tags you, that posts does not goes public in your timeline without your approval. If this setting is enabled, you get notified when someone tags you and that post remains hidden from your timeline.
In above setting, you can control who can tag you, do you need to review the post before they appear on your timeline, who can see the tagged posts etc.
If you correctly set these settings and removed applications, you can save your profile from porn spam attack that is viral on Facebook these days.
