A rogue app troubled a lot of people this week
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Hyderabad: Many in the city, who were checking their Facebook profiles on Friday, did not have a good time. All thanks to a ‘virus’ that soon took over. But what seemed like a virus to many was in fact a phishing attempt. People started getting tagged in links that read ‘Private Video’ and even got personal messages that read the same. Within no time, the links started spreading and soon there was havoc on Facebook.
A working professional from the city who faced this issue, had to struggle for about 2-3 hours to get the links off her profile. Things got better after she changed her password then logged in from another browser and deleted the posts from her account. But the same method did not work for many others.
Shruti Darak, a student from the city who also had to battle this issue says, “I got a message from a friend and I clicked the link. It then started spreading. Things got weird when people I don’t know that well started getting tagged in my status.”
After struggling for a few hours and changing her password nothing seemed to work. She adds, “I removed all the apps from my Facebook account and then had to reload them. Changing my password did not help. After I removed the password, I deactivated my account for a long time.”
Many people started advising those affected on what they can do, but it didn’t work in a few cases. Raju P.P., editor of TechPP, says why. “Such links are not viruses. They are phishing attempts. Sometimes, we see links that say, for e.g., a crocodile eats a tiger. Because it sounds interesting people might click on the link, but instead of the video, an app gets downloaded. These are rogue apps that people create to get access to one’s account,” he explains.
Once the app gets access to your account, it sends spam messages to those on your friends list and even tags them, unsuspecting people click on the link and it spreads again. So how does one keep safe from such phishing attacks? Raju says, “First, don’t click links that seem suspicious. And if you have clicked it, close the link immediately. But, if the app already has gained access to your account, then you will have to go to the settings account on your profile, then go to the apps setting and change the authorisation settings for all the apps. You can also delete the apps that you don’t recognise. Once you do that, the rogue app will lose access to your account and this will stop the spread of the attack. Changing your password won’t really help as the app will still have access to your account.”
( Source : dc correspondent )
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