Facebook Scams How to Protect Yourself

Protecting yourself from hidden Facebook scams.

Anyone who has owned a computer for any length of time understands that scams and hacks are just a part of what you encounter on the Internet. However, with the popularity of the social network site Facebook, some of these scams have been hard to detect. Many of these scams go undetected because they are used through Facebook and not just showing up on your Internet browser. Here are a few ways that these rogue Facebook scams show up and what you can do to limit your exposure to them.

Identifying the Hidden Facebook Scams
When signing up with Facebook the user is required to submit their email address. The default setting is that you will be notified by email when something involving you happens on Facebook. When someone adds to a status update, either you composed or made comment to as well as being tagged in a photo by someone else you get that email.

When these email notifications come to you, sometimes they are from Facebook applications. Some of these apps that reside on Facebook are innocent enough, but a few can be devious and downright dangerous. With millions of users, Facebook is a major online target for crooks to maliciously use their apps to get everything from phishing for data, spam, and even installing malware viruses onto your PC.

How to Protect Yourself from the Hidden Facebook Scams
Anyone with an account can create and distribute Facebook apps. Since Facebook has a policy not to test app programs, this puts the burden on you the Facebook user to guard against those rogue apps. In addition, since these hidden scam apps live on Facebook's site, you won't have a file on your own PC to scan or check for viruses. However, there are a few simple steps you can take to keep yourself safe from these hidden Facebook scams.

The first one is to make sure that your Facebook security is set correctly. Facebook has a page www.facebook.com/security that gives its users warnings and advice on hidden scams. As a Facebook user, you will want to verify your privacy settings as well. Go to Account then Privacy Settings and click Applications and Websites. This is where you will find settings for what you and your friends can share about you. Think carefully about what you approve in this setting as it could leave you open to these hidden scams.

The second thing you should do is be patient. If a Facebook app comes up trying to convince you to try it, let it sit there for a day or two before using it. Many times, Facebook will have pulled the hidden scam apps because other users have reported it. Usually because they did not have the patience you may have had.