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Facebook's Mandatory Anti-Malware Scan Is Invasive and Lacks Transparency (wired.com)

Posted by msmash on from the what's-happening? dept.

Louise Matsakis, writing for Wired: The internet is full of Facebook users frustrated with how the company handles malware threats. For nearly four years, people have complained about Facebook's anti-malware scan on forums, Twitter, Reddit, and on personal blogs. The problems appear to have gotten worse recently. While the service used to be optional, Facebook now requires it if it flags your device for malware. And according to screenshots reviewed by WIRED from people recently prompted to run the scan, Facebook also no longer allows every user to select what type of device they're on. The malware scans likely only impact a relatively small population of Facebook's billions of users, some of whose computers may genuinely be infected. But even a fraction of Facebook's users still potentially means millions of impacted people.

The mandatory scan has caused widespread confusion and frustration; WIRED spoke to people who had been locked out of their accounts by the scan, or simply baffled by it, on four different continents. The mandatory malware scan has downsides beyond losing account access. Facebook users also frequently report that the feature is poorly designed, and inconsistently implemented. In some cases, if a different user logs onto Facebook from the same device, they sometimes won't be greeted with the malware message. Similarly, if the "infected" user simply switches browsers, the message also appears to occasionally go away.

7 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Facebook's anti-malware by Calydor · · Score: 2

    Same way it installs it, I wager.

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  2. UserAgent string by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Browse FB (if you must) with your UserAgent string set to FreeBSD. Do they even MAKE a "malware scanner" for FreeBSD? If it doesn't exist for the platform, it's not likely to be offered.

    1. Re:UserAgent string by tlhIngan · · Score: 2

      Browse FB (if you must) with your UserAgent string set to FreeBSD. Do they even MAKE a "malware scanner" for FreeBSD? If it doesn't exist for the platform, it's not likely to be offered.

      Of course they do. Not for FreeBSD malware, mind you, but it'll scan for any sort of malware to prevent your FreeBSD machine from being an inadvertent carrier of malware.

      It's the same reason why Linux is hacked - not because it's to spread Linux malware, but to infect some service so it can spread malware to Windows machines to connect to it. That's why it's almost never Linux itself proper that's hacked, but common services like WordPress.

  3. So they are foisting osquery on us, eh? by gatkinso · · Score: 2

    So now our entire OS is to be exposed as a database for their analytics? Color me not interested.

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    I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
  4. Re: Every American must watch this by c6gunner · · Score: 2

    That's wonderful. I'm sure that Christopher "Da Joos did 9/11" Bollyn has all sorts of incredible insights into how the lizard people are planning on forcing is into FEMA camps

  5. More information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The article is unfortunately lacking in details. From what I can tell, the malware scan is triggered when Facebook believes the account is posting spam. In fairness, there is a lot of malware-related spam that gets posted on Facebook and they have a legitimate reason to keep it off their site.

    The problem is the complete lack of transparency and that the antivirus products can remove and share information about files in your computer. There has to be a much better way to do this. For example, Facebook could explain the actual reason for flagging the account as potentially spreading malware. The user could be faced with a temporary ban on posting that gets longer if they continue to allow malware to make spam posts. The ban will be lifted as well by running a malware scan that validates the system is clean. Give the user a choice to wait out a temporary posting ban and clean their system, or run the tool. That seems like a fairer way to prevent malware from spreading.

    As for when Facebook locks users out of their accounts, it seems like contacting the Better Business Bureau is a good way to force the issue to be resolved: https://community.norton.com/en/forums/i-have-been-blocked-logging-facebook-it-claims-i-have-malware-and-must-add-eset-program-scan. At least one user suggested that they are responsive to such complaints.

  6. Scan, Scam by kmassare · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Whenever I get a "warning" about malware on my device, I assume that the message is a scam where someone wants to charge me to "fix" my device or wants to install malware on it.