Alert! Facebook Password Reset Confirmation Email Contains Virus

E-Holes have ramped up their scamming and spamming recently, flooding social media with insidious attempts to lure users into their traps. Is it a coincidence the black hats have increased their activity just as a significant chunk of Facebook’s recent growth comes from newbies in search of photos of the grandchildren?

Please Nana, don’t click on that link!

Mashable is now warning of a new virus spreading via Facebook. This one – known as Bredolab – masks itself as a “Password Reset Confirmation Email,” appears to come from Facebook, and attaches a file that purports to contain a new password.

That file is actually a trojan horse that will download a host of nasty files from the Web and infect your computer with them. Email security firm MX Lab explains further:

“Bredolab is a trojan horse that downloads and executes files from the Internet, such as rogue anti-spyware. To bypass firewalls, it injects its own code into legitimate processes svchost.exe and explorer.exe. Bredolab contains anti-sandbox code (the trojan might quit itself when an external program investigates its actions).”

How to avoid this E-Hole Epidemic: Did you request your password from Facebook? If not, you shouldn’t be getting a password reset confirmation email. So don’t open it! And even if you did ask for one, Facebook would not send your new password as an attachment. Finally, f you’re still not sure, take a look at the full details of the email – if the mail servers don’t belong to Facebook, you know the message is not legit.

Seven Signs You May Be Ready for a Social Media Detox.

I gave up Facebook for Lent.  For forty days and nights, I will not be updating my status, becoming a fan, poking anyone or commenting on 25 Random Things.  I will not be turning to page 56 and finding a sentence, sending good Karma or sipping along with my A Glass of Wine Solves Everything group.
 
My decision has absolutely nothing to do with any religious fervor, other than being fervently grateful to the Episcopalian calendar which served up a handy excuse to log off.  Said calendar also delivered a mighty reason to take a look at Social Media’s impact on my life.
 
What I saw was not pretty. 
 
And yet my addiction is on the mild side, more like a low-grade fever than a full-on infectious case of Facebook-itis. I may have sampled the Social Media Koolaid, but I’m not chugging the stuff like many of the ‘tweeple’ I know.  I’m enamored but not enslaved. In fact, I’ve only made my way through a smattering of Chris Brogan’s 100 Personal Branding Secrets.
 
Still, as a market researcher and passionate digital anthropologist, I knew it was time for a dig. Like Yahoo’s Internet Deprivation Study of yore, I wanted to understand the grisly details of deprivation.  I wanted to know what I would miss about Facebook; what I actually value; what I would be overjoyed to leave behind.
 
By the time I posted my last status update shortly after Ash Wednesday (which I pretty much only knew about because of Joe Biden’s forehead), I realized I was more than ready to not only give up Facebook for a time but also consider a complete Social Media Detox.
 
Ask yourself: Do you need to do a Social Media Detox?  Here are seven signs you might be ready:
 
 
Are you an Early Adopter? 
Ho-hum. Are you sort of over it? Those of us who are perpetually on the bleeding edge of new, sometimes either want to ditch it when the vox populi show up in droves or simply because it’s no longer the pretty shiny new thing.  We thrive on beta. We thrive on sneaking behind the velvet rope. When they let everybody in . . .  On the other hand, there are enough cool new tools popping up virtually every second, especially for Twitter, (Twiddeo) and a parade of nichey new social networks to keep boredom at bay.
 
Does buzz equal biz?
Despite the constant chatter from all directions about ‘putting yourself out there’ via networking, much of this buzz is total BS. Even if you aggressively transform yourself into a social media rockstar via the notorious TweeterGetter, your newfound fame may not automatically translate into mucho dinero.  Those shameless self-promoters swarming over every social network may generate noise but that doesn’t mean they’re doing much real, sustainable business. The dirty secret of social networks? Too many sellers, too few buyers. Consider: What’s the benefit of social media to your bottom line? Show me the money, folks.  
 
This doesn’t mean social media tools aren’t valuable –I’ve met terrific people, gotten great projects and leads, mined countless consumer insights, and overall, found the tools to be worthwhile if sometimes overwhelming.  But to be blunt, I have solid skills and talents to back up my putting myself out there. I am not using them to shill for an empty suit.

Who owns your stuff?
Facebook’s recent Terms of Service switcheroo shocked many into re-thinking how they want to use the social network.  Although they’ve since reversed themselves and formed a consumer advisory group, the brouhaha was tantamount to social media shock therapy.  The pivotal question:  who owns my content? Do I want Facebook to ‘own’ it even after I’ve deleted my account?  And for businesses who routinely recommend Facebook as part of a social media strategic plan, what are the guidelines for who owns and retains an advertising or promotional campaign that’s appeared Facebook?
 
Are you blurring your business and personal life?
You may have jumped on to Facebook early on and populated your profile with real-life friends.  Then along comes the barrage of networkers, business colleagues and in betweens. Now you’ve got a quixotic stew of business and personal.  Sometimes it works just fine. It can be a joy to get to know colleagues and clients in a more human way. Last fall’s political campaigns pointed up a growing issue:  For example, do you want your clients to know your thoughts on Prop 8? (I do!) And then there’s its discretional corollary: Do you want your Great Aunt Hazel or favorite high school teacher to see your tipsy party pix?
 
Is social media a time and energy suck for you?
How do you find time to blog, tweet, update Linkedin, Facebook and MySpace, post your pix on Flickr, your articles on Mixx, Digg, Biznik and Kirtsy, your favorites on Delicio.us, your sites on Stumbleupon, your art on etsy, comment on relevant blogs and networking email lists, search for juicy links to share — and oh by the way, also do your real work? Sure, some Tweeters are using a variety of time-saving organizational tools (Tweetdeck, Friend Feed) to manage their activities.  Even so, putting your best business face forward across multiple social media platforms is a challenge. (Quite a few rely on Virtual Admins like the awesome @jkvirtualoffice). 

I don’t know about you, folks, but I need time, quiet and focus to serve my clients well and feel good about what I do.
 
True Value
In the immortal words of Dan Hicks and The Hot Licks:  How can I miss you if you won’t go away?  
Perfectly said, Dan. I’ll soon know what it is, if anything, that I miss about Facebook.
 
Do you have a personal social media strategy?  Should you get one?
Last night, social media pioneer Chris Brogan mentioned on Twitter that he had already deleted 350 of his Facebook friends. I don’t know his reasons but I do know more and more people are re-defining how they want to use social media. They’re pondering social networking’s role in their lives and rejiggering the balance of business and personal. My neighbor here on the Monterey Peninsula, @fuzznfeathers, recently took a short break from Twitter and enjoyed the extra offline time. Jumping off-the-grid results in more time and energy available for face to face connection. According to research I’ve recently conducted, the blend of online + offline touchpoints turns out to be one powerful combo for increasing engagement.
 
What have I learned already?
I already know, mere days after exiting Facebook, that I don’t miss the Frammers who weaseled their way into my list of Friends. I do miss seeing the new pictures of my baby cousins and the parade of polls, surveys and beer-apps from my dear sorority sister, Kimberly. I do miss the pithy and often intriguing posts from Laurie Peterson, Eric Weaver and Katherine Ruppe.   

But most of all, I miss my daughter’s ever-changing profile pictures, usually taken in the dorm around 2 a.m. while she’s avoiding writing a term paper.

Easter’s so close I can almost smell the egg-salad sandwiches.