Facebook Black? Don’t Click, It’s A Trap!

“Facebook Black” may be a term spotted in your Facebook feed this week, but don’t click on any status links promising a Facebook color change — the trend is the latest way for scammers to compromise your account and potentially cause all kinds of Facebook havoc.

Facebook Black is one of many scams that target the desire of Facebook users to personalize their profiles. Historically, Facebook has been different from predecessor MySpace in not offering users the option of customizing profiles.

Facebook Black and options like it are not a feature Facebook is likely to offer in the foreseeable future, and it’s probably pretty safe to say the social network is happy with a consistent, uniform appearance across all profiles. (Read: Timeline. You’re stuck with it.)

So in the void created between users wanting MySpace-style customization and Facebook’s design direction, scams like Facebook black have proliferated.

Sophos, the online security clearinghouse, took one for the team and examined the Facebook Black scam — deducing that the posts direct to a survey scam in order to funnel a cut to scammers.

Blogger Graham Cluley explains that those who have clicked the Facebook Black links should take some steps to ensure the security of their account has not been compromised:

“If [you’ve] mistakenly clicked on links like the one above, remove offending messages, photos and ‘likes’ from your account, check that you have not authorised a rogue app to access your account (from where it could steal information or post without asking your permission), revoke any rogue app’s publishing rights and report it as spam to Facebook.”

Have you spotted Facebook Black posts on your feed in recent days?