Virus Alerts: The Facebook Fan Check Virus

Facebook Fan Check Virus: Has it Spread to Twitter?

2009-10-04T15:25:00.000-07:00

Has the Facebook Fan Check Virus finally made it's way to Twitter? There are reports of users starting to tweet malicious urls that infect users the very moment their computers load the malicious page. Hackers have begun using the mass network of Twitter followers to attach their links to some of Twitter's "popular trends."

As of current, this is just a preliminary report. Our team recommends that under no circumstances should users click on any links on Twitter, especially if the link is included with any popular trends.

As always, if you have clicked on a malicious link, please be sure to run a scan with your copy of NoAdware. Otherwise, you may fall victim to anything from identity fraud to credit card/check fraud to lost social networking and email accounts.

Fan Check Application Virus Strikes Again

2009-09-14T10:14:00.001-07:00

With the Fan Check Application Virus dropping in popularity and out of the charts in the past few days, a surprise has popped up: The Fan Check Application Virus rumors are back. You know that the virus relied upon users to Google, visit webpages and then download virus-ware.

That is no longer the case, the Fan Check Application Virus only requires users to visit a link posted on Facebook.

The virus has evolved, quite possibly from the botnet that was establishe4d with the last attacks. Users will find their friends posting links to webpages, images and even application links on Facebook. This virus has become even more virulent and dangerous. This new strand of the Fan check Application Virus has become equally dangerous, as none of the major antiviruses we tested have detected it in our tests.

The virus is sending private user data, such as account logins and passwords to hackers to be stored and used for malicious purposes.

Registry Easy is the only program we have found that securely fixes errors in registries that prevents the virus from propagating to the user's system. We are currently advising users heavily to install this program in order prevent being infected by the Fan Check Application Virus.

Almost a Week Later and It's Like The Fan Check Virus Never Happened... Or is it?

2009-09-13T09:44:00.000-07:00

There's still an overwhelming number of reports of computers with viruses left on their computer from the Facebook fan check virus incident. Roughly three out of four computers that were on Facebook the past Labor Day could be infected with it.

Even if you're not infected, there's a very likely chance that your computer may still suffer some slowdowns from the fan check virus. (There's been reports of it affecting both the registry and several .DLL files in Windows.)

If you think your computer is running slower than it was before last Labor Day weekend, then do a virus scan. If you have a virus or adware, remove it with your anitivirus/antispyware program.

If your computer is still slow, you probably have damaged DLL files and a compromised registry. You can check out ErrorSmart (click here) for the best tool to fix this.

Fan Check Virus: Social Manipulaton to Google

2009-09-08T09:46:00.000-07:00

The source of the fan check virus is not from Facebook nor is it directly form a Facebook application. It's from Google.

The entire fan check virus fiasco was caused by hackers creating a popular trend in Google using a keyword of the same name and then uploading a broken application to the Fan Check Application. They then proceeded to spam (See Google here) Facebook discussion boards with questions pertaining to the actual fan check application.

There are two proposed actual reasons behind this:

The entire hoax was done by one hacker group.
The application was broken, people asked on the discussion board and hackers picked up on the keyword people were using.

The evolution of the keyword on Google trends went something like "what is fan check?" which evolved into "facebook fan check" to "fan check virus." If you note the results on Google for the search term, most websites that come up are marked malicious by Google already. These websites are the same ones that spam Google trends with spam normally.

The simple solution is to NOT visit any of these websites on Google.

The recommendation of this team is to scan with an Adware removal program such as NoAdware which successfully disinfected 99.9% of systems we found infected with the Fan Check Virus. You can find it here. We recommend it because it's a product that has thoroughly passed our standards.

More News About the Facebook Fan Check Virus

2009-09-07T11:25:00.000-07:00

More news has been released about the Fan Check Virus. Rumors are circulating that it is a hoax, but the Fan Check Virus is not a hoax. The Facebook Fan Check Virus is real, and it will infect you if you visit the Fan Check application.

There are reports that it compromises accounts after becoming a fan of the application. This may be true, but there are also confirmed reports that just visiting the Fan Check application leads to acquiring a virus.

Our team is currently investing these reports about the Fan Check Virus and will report in on it when we find out more about it.

In addition to Registry Easy, we have verified that people with NoAdware installed have been rendered immune from the Fan Check Virus. Our team has found that both products have protected vulnerable computers from registry modifications that the Facebook Fan Check Virus makes.

Protect Yourself From the Facebook Fan Check Virus

2009-09-06T20:19:00.000-07:00

Check it out, the newest Facebook virus that's running rampant is one called the Facebook Fan Check Virus. Basically, the Facebook Fan Check Virus is an application that supposedly lets you check the number of fans on a page and allows you to set an rss feed to be posted to your Facebook fan page. Sounds great, doesn't it?

Well, it's not. The Facebook Fan Check Virus presents itself as an application that is 'down' and in turn redirecting you to a page that says it will notify you when the page comes back up again. So far, there are an estimated 368,000 Facebook accounts and that number is increasing by the minute.

Once your Facebook account is compromised by the Facebook Fan Check Virus, you're locked out of it. Your password is changed and your email is changed. You lose all access to your Facebook account and are unable to recover from it.

It then mails every single one of your friends in an attempt to infect them. The second they open the message, their account is compromised.

Facebook has not released any official updates about this because their team is still investigating and the virus is very hard to detect. So far, there are only two total programs able to detect it and prevent it.

The first is Registry Easy, which is managed by McAfee Secureshield. It's been around for a few years now and deals especially with keeping your registry clean and working. If you have a fragmented registry, it is much easier for viruses like the Facebook Fan Check Virus to work. It also protects from several viruses that have been spread on other social networks like MySpace and Twitter.

The second is Registry Cleaner and Optimizer, which has been validate by McAfee but is not one of their products. It follows the same premise as the prevous product, but it has also been voted 5 stars by Tuscows. It's nationally recognized and a good alternative to Registry Easy.

Both of these products WILL protect you from the Facebook Fan Check Virus. So stay safe and keep your Facebook account.