Warning: Fake Facebook 'Dislike' Button Plagues Facebook Users

If you are a consistent user of Facebook, you probably have seen posts that you do not completely agree with and would like to click a 'Dislike' button if one was available. Lately, there have been a few services that supposedly offer a Facebook 'Dislike' button but one of them has been discovered to be a scam that could be potentially dangerous.

There is no denying that Facebook has had its fair share of Likejacking and status update scams lately that have lead computer users to online surveys and phishing pages. The cybercrooks that come up with these scam campaigns like to keep things fresh by introducing different ways to entice users to click on their garbage. This time, it is through the use of offering a 'dislike' button.

In the recently discovered 'dislike' button scam, cybercrooks purposely offer a way for Facebook users to click 'dislike' on a wall post instead of the traditional 'like' button. There have even been petitions created by Facebook users in the past to implement a new 'dislike' function but Facebook's answer to that is they want to keep their service "positive". One of our technical support members noticed this very link on one of his friend's status updates today. The new Facebook 'dislike' button scam simply posts a message on a user's wall, as shown in Figure 1 below, that reads:

"I just got the Dislike button, so now I can dislike all of your dumb posts lol! hxxp:/tiny.cc/thedislikebutton… The Official Dislike Button on Facebook…"

Figure 1. Fake Facebook 'Dislike' button message on a users' wall.

If a Facebook user clicks on the 'like' provided, they are sent to a landing page that supposedly installs the new 'dislike' button but instead it points you to a Firefox add-on called FaceMod. The FaceMod add-on for Firefox dubs itself as the Facebook Dislike button but is not an "official" Facebook dislike button. We have also found by clicking on the link in Figure 1. that the user will automatically get the same scam posted on their Facebook wall to share with friends.

The latest 'dislike' button scam has not proven to be harmful as of yet but we can easily see how it could be used in the future to potentially spread malware or even steal personal information. Just like the many cases of 'like' button scams, the 'dislike' button can be a gateway to computer infections or, even worse, identity theft.

No matter what, you should never give away personal information unless you are 100% sure of where it is being sent and who is obtaining it. As always, be suspicious of links that supposedly offer some type of new functionality for Facebook or any other social network. Usually, when a new feature is revealed by Facebook, it is announced to all users through an 'official' message instead of finding out about it through a friend.

If Facebook had a 'dislike' button, would you use it?