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With the continuous popularity of social networking sites, the cycles of malicious activities are expected to remain persistent though evolving to keep up with the modifications the site’s layer of security go through. Another malware alert was recently raised by security firm McAffee through their Security Insights blog regarding malicious activities proliferating through Facebook via e-mails sent from what appears to be from the social network itself.

According to the blog post, the e-mail claims that Facebook has reset the user’s password and that they would have to click on an attachment to be able to retrieve their new password. The attachment in question is actually a password stealer which, upon launch, would install itself into the user’s computer. It targets Windows machines and can potentially access any login credentials utilized there, Facebook or otherwise.

“This threat is potentially very dangerous considering that there are over 400 million Facebook users who could fall for this scam.” McAffee said. “This is also the sixth most prevalent piece of malware targeting consumers in the last 24 hours, as tracked by McAfee Labs.”

The blog post further explains that there are obvious clues that this is an obvious phishing scam. While Facebook may occasionally send alerts via e-mail, it will not do so when the password has already been reset. If a user does need to reset their password, the social network will indeed send an e-mail but it will not include an attachment and instead will contain a link where the user can reset their password themselves within Facebook’s domain. Another telltale sign is the poor grammar and awkward phrases as seen on the salutation “Dear user of facebook” where Facebook is obviously not capitalized.

McAffee is now urging Facebook users who have received this e-mail not to open the attachment and promptly delete the e-mail.

Tags: Facebook, Security, Social Media, social network, Technology, the right way, trust