Facebook already has a couple of tools that help its users fight malware, but the social network thinks it can do even better.
To shore up efforts in keeping users safe from malicious software, Facebook says it has partnered with Slovakia-based security software firm ESET to incorporate a free malware scanner right into Facebook's own abuse detection and prevention systems.
In a blog post announcing the partnership, software engineer Chetan Gowda of Facebook's site integrity team says the new malware detection software provided by ESET will determine if a device accessing Facebook demonstrates suspicious behavior. If it does, Facebook will offer a free anti-malware scan using the ESET scanner, which will show the results of the scan and provide an option for the user to disable any malware unearthed by the scanner.
"You can run the scan, see the scan results and disable the software all without logging out of Facebook -- making it seamless and easy to clean up an infected device," Gowda says.
Facebook already has forged partnerships with two other security software firms. In 2011, the Helsinki-based antivirus company F-Secure launched a new app called ShareSafe that protected Facebook users from spam and malicious links that appear on their News Feeds.
Two years after, Facebook struck a deal with Trend Micro to provide its mobile security software to users of Android tablets and smartphones, including a free privacy scanner that examines users' privacy settings and provides recommendations.
Both F-Secure and Trend Micro's Facebook-incorporated scanners work like ESET. Facebook will notify the user if either of these scanners detect suspicious behavior and will offer to scan the device using one of its security tools. Gowda says with more of these tools at users' disposal, Facebook can help its more than 1 billion members keep their devices more secure because each tool will carry different malware signatures for a variety of threats.
"[Having] a larger number of providers increases the chances that malware will get caught and cleaned up, which will help people on Facebook keep their information more secure," says Gowda.
Facebook is a major malware target because of its popularity. One such type of malicious software that has repeatedly compromised Facebook users' systems is Koobface, which baited users to click on malicious links by sending them private messages that tempted them to look at a fake video of themselves. In 2010, a survey by BitDefender showed more than a fifth of Facebook users have become the victim of malicious software.
However, since incorporating the tools from F-Secure and Trend Micro, reports of malware infection have decreased over time.
