Social media users should not let their guards down, especially when malicious software continues to spread and attack via social media tools and networks. Recently, security firm Sophos warned Facebook users about a malicious software that disguises as a Facebook photo tag alert.

In a Naked Security blog post, Sophos’ senior technology consultant Graham Cluley stated that the security firmware intercepted a “spammed-out email campaign” that is designed to infect recipient’s computer with malware tied to the infamous Blackhole exploit kit.

What Happens When I Click the Link?

Be extra cautious (and suspicious) of emails claiming to be from Facebook, saying you’ve been tagged. Once you click the link that supposedly directs you to the photo, you’re instead taken to a website that hosts a “malicious iFrame script” that runs the Blackhole exploit kit. Blackhole essentially opens a back door for more malware, putting your PC at a greater risk.

What makes the campaign even cleverer and trickier is that within four seconds, you’re suddenly redirected to a legitimate Facebook page of a “presumably entirely innocent individual” to act as a smokescreen. Because of this clever trick, you won’t be skeptical that something just went terribly wrong, when in fact you’ve just been malware attacked.

How Can I Tell If the Email is Fake?

Observe an example of what a typical email looks like:

Did you notice the phish-y part about it? Look closely at the “From” field of the email. Gotcha! It misspells “Facebook” with an extra “o.” Pretty sneaky, right? But Cluley further hinted:

Even if you didn’t notice that “Faceboook” was spelt incorrectly, you could have seen by hovering your mouse over the link that it wasn’t going to take you directly to the genuine Facebook website.

Cluley also advised users to keep “your wits about you” when online.

If you don’t take the right steps to protect your computer, one day a cybercriminal might find the right social engineering trick to dupe you into making a bad decision or visit a dangerous website.

SophosLabs is adding detection of the malware as Troj/JSRedir-HW and still investigating this attack.

Cyberattacks running rampant through the social networks is nothing new. That’s why it pays to do a spell-check before you click, because you never know when you’ve just been phished.

 

Image Sources: Computer Bugs Courtesy of Mike Vadala via Flickr and Fake Email via http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com

The post Warning: Malware Feigns as Facebook Photo Tag Notification appeared first on About Social Media.

Before starting your online marketing campaign, it would be ideal to have a blog so that you can generate content. Other than providing you a big room to come up with a post, this is also a good starting point for a conversation. With regards to keeping the communication mill churning for your content, there are three communication categories that you need to know.

Creators

You cannot have a starting point in any of your online marketing campaign, unless you create something. You have to provide a content that will compel other people to share it or talk about it. Furthermore, creating content can help you establish your credibility and expertise on the subject matter that you want to cover.

Curators

According to Jamie Beckland, curation is “the act of synthesizing and interpreting in order to present a complete record of concept.” In order to have a successful curation strategy, you have to subscribe to a lot of related content provider. You can use online tools like Google Reader. This will enable you to provide insightful commentary, while sharing it to your followers. It will help them gauge the value of the links that you share, as well as determine how much you know about your niche.

Social Media Platforms

Starting with social networking sites may less likely give you rewards, this is a helpful tool if you want to add personal touch with the content that you share. Other than curation, you can share your content through this platform, while letting you make it more human and interesting. When you’re using Twitter, remember to leave about 20 characters free so that your followers can retweet it without having to edit your tweet.

Sharing Your Content with Style

Social media marketing is more than just creating content and sharing it through networking platforms. You also need to know and define your style when interacting with your audience. You need to establish a voice that will establish how much you know about your brand’s industry. Furthermore, your marketing style will help you attract the right audience for your business.

That’s why it is important that you have to distinguish your social media marketing style. You can emulate whatever you think is working for other businesses in your industry. See how other brands approach their audience and how they share their content. Find out what kind of style works for you and your business most and start with. You cannot be a copycat forever, that’s why it’s also important you have to know what comes naturally to you and work it to your advantage.

The post Finding Your Social Media Marketing Style appeared first on About Social Media.

Blimps Supplement Your Advertising

Blimps can replace any form of advertising or advertising campaign that you may have seen or heard, such is the power that lies within this spectacular advertising media.

Advertising is critical

For any business, big or small, established or new, advertising plays a very important role and it just cannot be neglected or taken for granted. As advertising plays such a major role in the success or failure of any business, giant corporates thus make use of all kinds of adverting vehicles to ensure their success.

But while big corporations have the kind of big bucks that are required to invest in advertising, this is not the case with small advertisers. Small businesses find it very tough to advertise and compete with big advertisers as they have little or no advertising budgets.

Blimps to the rescue

Whether you are a big corporation with a hefty advertising budget or whether you are a small business owner with almost no ad budget at all, by using giant balloons you are bound to make a big difference to your business. This is because of the proven fact that people always tend to take notice of these huge balloons, no matter what they may be doing.

This is really great because nowadays people just do not bother to pay any attention to ads and thus advertisers stand to lose a lot of money when they advertise and people do not look at their ads.

A critical role
In such a scenario when people are just disinterested in advertising, it is crucial that advertisers invest their advertising bucks in media to which people are actually responsive. And it is a well-established fact that giant advertising balloons give big returns on advertising money, as people actually do tend to take notice of this medium.

And this is the exact reason why more and more companies, both big and small, are turning to making use of giant balloons to advertise their products, services, company logo, company motto, etc.

Very unique form of advertising
Advertising by using giant advertising balloons is a unique way of advertising, but the best part is that it can be made even more unique. As an advertiser you can make a big balloon in any color or shape or size that you want to.

In fact you can even make the big balloon in the shape of your company logo or even your mascot. In this way you are ensuring that your Blimps are truly very attractive and eye-catching and guaranteed to bring your biz the attention that you crave for.

Blimps Supplement Your Advertising Campaign is a post from: Advertising Balloons

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