Wherever people can be found, you will find scammers looking for victims which is why you must be particularly vigilant when you use ever-popular social media such as Facebook and Twitter.  I continue to alert you to new scams arising on these and other social media as the scams become identified.  The latest social media scam uses both Facebook and Twitter.  It starts when you receive a Twitter direct message telling you about an embarrassing video of you that has been posted on Facebook.  The message further provides a link that looks like it will take you to Facebook.  If you click on the link a popup will inform you that “An update to YouTube player is needed,”  You are then instructed to click through to download an update to Flash Player 10.1.  If you fall for this bait and attempt to download the latest update of Flash, you won’t get a Flash update, but you will download a keystroke logging malware program on your computer that will steal all of your peronal information from your computer and make you a victim of identity theft.

TIPS

Never click on any links in an tweet unless you are absolutely positive that the tweet is legitimate.  Even if it appears to come from a friend, it is important to remember that their Twitter account may have been hacked into and the tweet you receive is from a scammer or identity thief.  If you have any doubt (and you should always have some) contact the friend personally by phone or email and make sure that the message was legitmate and even then you have to be wary because they may not be aware that they may be passing on a tainted link.  Always keep your security software up to date with the latest updates to protect you as much as possible from viruses and malware.