Earlier this month in a concerted effort by law enforcement throughout the world, ten people were arrested in Boznia, Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, New Zealand, Peru, the UK and the United States in regard to a scam that targeted Facebook users through a botnet called the Buttefly Botnet.  This particular type of botnet had already been used to successfully infect half of the Fortune 500 companies.  According to the United States Justice Department, the Buttefly Botnet infected eleven million computers and resulted in losses of 850 millino dollars already.  The way the Butterfly botnet worked was by hijacking the accounts of Facebook users which would then be used to post messages and links that would appear to come from the accounts of friends, but in reality would be links that, when clicked on, downloaded malware such as keystroke logging malware that would steal all of the information from the infected computer causing the computer owner to become a victim of identity theft.

TIPS

As I have been advising you for a long time (unless you are new to this website/blog, in which case you now know how important it is to read this website/blog each day to stay informed about the latest in protecting yourself from scams and identity theft schemes) never trust any email or Facebook posting that contains a link or an attachment unless you have independently verified that the email or Facebook posting is not from your someone you know and not part of a botnet.  Additionally, you should not even trust such a link or attachment even if it comes from someone you know because they may unwittingly be passing on a tainted attachment or link.  Always find out the source of any attachment or link and confirm that it is legitimate.