Change facebook password at your own risk

A virus masking itself as the 'Facebook Password Reset Confirmation email' is on the prowl

Change facebook password at your own risk

Au00a0virus masking itself as the 'Facebook Password Reset Confirmation email' is on the prowl

Facebook can also ruin fun. Saikat Debnath, a resident of Rohini in Delhi, learnt this lesson the hard way. The 23-year-old Engineering student's life turned upside down when he could not access his Facebook and email accounts. This is not all. Heu00a0 also had to spend big bucks to repair his laptop.

One wrong click on an email that appeared to come from the social networking siteu00a0 Facebook landed Debnath into this mess.

According to cyber experts, a new virus is spreading on name ofu00a0 the social networking site. Facebook. The virus Bredolab disguised as a "Password Reset Confirmation Email," appears to come from Facebook, which makes it easy fool netizens.

Delhi-based cyber crime expert Vivek vohra said, "Bredolab attaches a file that purports to contain a new password. That file is a trojan horse that will download a host of nasty files from the Web."

"I got an email with the subject "Facebook Password Reset Confirmation". The email read:u00a0 to provide safety to our client, passwords have been changed. You can find your new password in the attached document. After opening the file, I realised it was a spoof email," said the disappointed Debnath.

Later, Debnath was taken aback when he couldn't access his email and Facebook accounts.

"My accounts have been disabled. Every time I try to log in it tells me 'wrong password'. Even my operating system collapsed. When I took my laptop to the technician, he told an infected file has corrupted the system," he said.

Talking about the new ways of attacking innocent users, Vohra said, "Cyber crooks are coming up with new viruses to steal email id and all the personal details of netizens. It is always suggested to check every link and attachment before opening them."u00a0 "Unlike the Facebook phishing attacks last year, when bad links were distributed through hacked user accounts, now the name of social networking sites are being used."

According to the Facebook team,u00a0 the spoof email containing the virus wasn't coming from the social networking site.

Facebook said thatu00a0 this virus is being distributed through email. We never send users a new password as an attachment.

"We're educating users on how to detect this through the Facebook Security Page," the company blog post added.

"To avoid getting the virus, do not open a "Password Reset Confirmation E-mail" if you didn't request a password from Facebook," the cyber expert said.