Designer Ben Pieratt spotted an eye catching group in his feed this morning. His sister had joined a group called “WE’RE AGAINST THE 4.99 A MONTH CHARGE FOR FACEBOOK FROM JUNE 30TH 2010”.
Naturally intrigued, as he hadn’t heard any news about an upcoming monthly charged, he visited the group to discover it had 133,000 members but not one wall post. It did however contain a link to URL with reportedly malware and porn, but also attempts to download 25 items to your hard drive.
With any luck Facebook will remove the group shortly but how it’s managed to reach 133,000 members without anyone taking notice is beyond me.
A screenshot of the group is below if you or anyone you know is a member, ensure you or them are removed immediately – and notify Facebook here.
The 💜 of EU tech
The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!
Of course, we can only speculate as to what kind of damage has been done so far, how many computers infected. It is disheartining to see something so bad get so big, and keep growing. This could quickly become a standard trick in the scam arsenal. Facebook needs to point an eye in this direction.
Facebook has always had a problem with scams, just as any massive social service will. There have been the classic 491 scams, and the ever popular hidden fee scams. This one however is new to us, and is quite unnerving.
Facebook, fix this.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.