Top 10 Most Dangerous and Spamiest Facebook Pages – January 11, 2011

We are continuing with our weekly “Top 10” lists of the most dangerous and spamiest Facebook Pages.  If you would like to read how we come up with the lists, check out our initial post here but here is how we define each category…

Most Dangerous Category: This category could be a post or comment containing a dangerous link.  These links can lead to malware, phishing, or suspicious/dangerous Facebook applications that gather personal information and use people’s accounts for spam.

Spamiest Category: The spam noted could be Wall spam or comment spam.  All the spam messages included in the tally contain at least one URL and have been posted multiple times across different pages and post comments.

Here are this week’s Top 10 lists:

Most Dangerous

Rank	Last Week’s Ranking	Facebook Page	Threat Count	Last Week’s Threat Count
1	5	Minecraft	1053	180
2	1	Machinima.com	735	663
3	6	EL SECRETO DE LOS SIMPSONS	211	165
4	4	Farmville	181	189
5	3	Xbox Daily News	102	239
6	—	Keri Hilson	90	—
7	10	FrontierVille	90	97
8	20	Don Omar	88	37
9	12	The Game	86	78
10	25	The Ellen DeGeneres Show	64	29

Spamiest

Rank	Last Week’s Ranking	Facebook Page	Threat Count	Last Week’s Spam Count
1	3	FC Barcelona	1353	890
2	4	Cristiano Ronaldo	1038	878
3	2	Ninja Saga	1003	963
4	47	Shakira	886	118
5	5	Justin Beiber	845	661
6	6	Michael Jackson	816	640
7	16	Lil Wayne	677	342
8	11	Hotel City	608	443
9	9	Avril Lavigne	561	485
10	24	YO SOY DE VENEZUELA	554	204

A few notes about this week’s list:

The targeting of pages using human spam continues this week.  Overall, every week the same pages are repeatedly earning a spot on the lists.  As usual, stay vigilant of any comment and links on all Facebook Pages.

Top 10 Dangerous and Spamiest Pages – January 4, 2011

We are continuing with our weekly “Top 10” lists of the most dangerous and spamiest Facebook Pages.  If you would like to read how we come up with the lists, check out our initial post here but here is how we define each category…

Most Dangerous Category: This category could be a post or comment containing a dangerous link.  These links can lead to malware, phishing, or suspicious/dangerous Facebook applications that gather personal information and use people’s accounts for spam.

Spamiest Category: The spam noted could be Wall spam or comment spam.  All the spam messages included in the tally contain at least one URL and have been posted multiple times across different pages and post comments.

Here are this week’s Top 10 lists:

Most Dangerous

Rank	Last Week’s Ranking	Facebook Page	Threat Count	Last Week’s Threat Count
1	3	Machinima.com	663	296
2	47	Ninja Saja	305	32
3	4	Xbox Daily News	239	230
4	5	Farmville	189	208
5	—	Minecraft	180	—
6	2	EL SECRETO DE LOS SIMPSONS	165	493
7	—	Xbox UK	141	—
8	—	Madden NFL Superstars	122	—
9	68	Galatasaray ASiKlarl	110	25
10	30	FrontierVille	97	41

Spamiest

Rank	Last Week’s Ranking	Facebook Page	Threat Count	Last Week’s Spam Count
1	—	MYX Philippines	1246	—
2	5	Ninja Saga	963	1018
3	—	FC Barcelona	890	—
4	8	Cristiano Ronaldo	878	783
5	19	Justin Beiber	661	542
6	13	Michael Jackson	640	687
7	16	BRAAAINS	595	559
8	28	Country Story	594	342
9	—	Avril Lavigne	485	—
10	39	ME GUSTA LA CERVEZA	455	269

A few notes about this week’s list:

Looking at the Dangerous list, we are seeing a lot of video game related scams.  Those specific scams focus on offerings of free points or game cash.  As every week, we see a few social games (those played through the Facebook platform) on the list.

The Spamiest list contains a hodge podge of pages from sports to musical artists to social games.  Remember the spam usually appears on wall comments.

Top 10 Most Dangerous and Spamiest Facebook Pages — December 14, 2010

We are continuing with our weekly “Top 10” lists of the most dangerous and spamiest Facebook Pages.  If you would like to read how we come up with the lists, check out our initial post here but here is how we define each category…

Most Dangerous Category: This category could be a post or comment containing a dangerous link.  These links can lead to malware, phishing, or suspicious/dangerous Facebook applications that gather personal information and use people’s accounts for spam.

Spamiest Category: The spam noted could be Wall spam or comment spam.  All the spam messages included in the tally contain at least one URL and have been posted multiple times across different pages and post comments.

Here is this week’s Top 10 lists.

Most Dangerous

Rank	Last Week’s Ranking	Facebook Page	Threat Count	Last Week’s Threat Count
1	1	Justin Beiber	2580	1808
2	10	Machinima.com	470	214
3	3	Texas Hold’em Poker	401	325
4	6	YoVille	395	258
5	8	EL SECRETO DE LOS SIMPSONS	361	216
6	54	South Park	227	56
7	7	Wikileaks	224	221
8	13	Lil Wayne	223	157
9	—	YO NO FUIII !!	185	—
10	2	Farmville	185	539

Spamiest

Rank	Last Week’s Ranking	Facebook Page	Threat Count	Last Week’s Spam Count
1	5	Turkce rap	2476	939
2	24	Wikileaks	2347	456
3	1	Texas Hold’em Poker	1441	3582
4	3	FarmVille Sheep	1437	1201
5	2	FarmVille Cows	1425	1425
6	13	FC Barcelona	1297	606
7	19	678	1280	532
8	17	Michael Jackson	1050	549
9	8	Arabesk Rap	1029	726
10	23	KopTuq mu? xDe..!	935	465

A few notes about this week’s list:

Looking at the Dangerous rankings, we are seeing the same pages every week. They seem to be cycling in and out of the Top 10.  Also, our undisputed king of the Dangerous Top 10 is Justin Beiber.  This will be three weeks holding the #1 spot.  A reminder: these pages appear due to dangerous links in the comments or wall spam.

The Spamiest rankings have seen social games holding steady.  Of special interest are three Turkish pages: Turkce rap, Arabesk Rap, and KopTuq mu? xDe..!.  These pages seem to be connected through the same sponsor and have been targeted with general spam.

Top 10 Most Dangerous and Spamiest Facebook Pages — December 7, 2010

We are continuing with our weekly “Top 10” lists of the most dangerous and spamiest Facebook Pages.  If you would like to read how we come up with the lists, check out our initial post here but here is how we define each category…

Most Dangerous Category: This category could be a post or comment containing a dangerous link.  These links can lead to malware, phishing, or suspicious/dangerous Facebook applications that gather personal information and use people’s accounts for spam.

Spamiest Category: The spam noted could be Wall spam or comment spam.  All the spam messages included in the tally contain at least one URL and have been posted multiple times across different pages and post comments.

Here is this week’s Top 10 lists.

Most Dangerous

Rank	Last Week’s Ranking	Facebook Page	Threat Count	Last Week’s Threat Count
1	1	Justin Beiber	1808	1437
2	5	Farmville	539	345
3	7	Texas Hold’em Poker	325	324
4	22	FarmVille Cows	319	181
5	28	FarmVille Sheep	308	165
6	19	YoVille	258	185
7	—	Wikileaks	221	—
8	26	EL SECRETO DE LOS SIMPSONS	216	171
9	2	Harry Potter	215	379
10	856	Machinima.com	214	10

.

Spamiest

Rank	Last Week’s Ranking	Facebook Page	Threat Count	Last Week’s Spam Count
1	2	Texas Hold’em Poker	3582	2116
2	5	FarmVille Cows	1425	1325
3	6	FarmVille Sheep	1201	1188
4	8	Justin Beiber	1156	1133
5	14	Turkce rap	939	658
6	25	Komik Ve liginc Videolar	907	468
7	27	Pet Society	760	435
8	15	Arabesk Rap	726	641
9	37	FarmVille	712	351
10	26	Miley Cyrus	679	454

.

A few notes about this week’s list:

Justin Beiber and the social games continue to hold the top spots on the “Dangerous” list.  We expect to see this trend continue. On the Spamiest ranking, social games hold most of the spots.  We don’t expect to see any real change in the coming weeks. As ever, be vigilant about links posted on Facebook pages.  Verify the link’s identity before clicking to avoid any problems.

Top 10 Most Dangerous and Spamiest Facebook Pages — November 30, 2010

We are continuing with our weekly “Top 10” lists of the most dangerous and spamiest Facebook Pages.  If you would like to read how we come up with the lists, check out our initial post here but here is how we define each category…

Most Dangerous Category: This category could be a post or comment containing a dangerous link.  These links can lead to malware, phishing, or suspicious/dangerous Facebook applications that gather personal information and use people’s accounts for spam.

Spamiest Category: The spam noted could be Wall spam or comment spam.  All the spam messages included in the tally contain at least one URL and have been posted multiple times across different pages and post comments.

Here is this week’s Top 10 lists.

Most Dangerous

Rank	Last Week’s Ranking	Facebook Page	Threat Count	Last Week’s Threat Count
1	1	Justin Bieber	1437	1236
2	5	Harry Potter	379	465
3	2	Twilight	379	701
4	9	Lil Wayne	375	405
5	44	FarmVille	345	201
6	6	Usher	334	437
7	3	Texas Hold’em Poker	324	503
8	14	Shakira	302	380
9	13	Linkin Park	284	383
10	22	AKON	269	272

Spamiest

Rank	Last Week’s Ranking	Facebook Page	Threat Count	Last Week’s Spam Count
1	1	Lil Wayne	2253	2150
2	2	Texas Hold’em Poker	2116	2047
3	4	Drake	1475	1706
4	16	Real Madrid C.F.	1415	857
5	21	FarmVille Cows	1325	722
6	19	FarmVille Sheep	1188	756
7	8	Wiz Khalifa	1170	1402
8	7	Justin Bieber	1133	1512
9	15	FC Barcelona	867	878
10	—	Michael Jackson	784	—

A few notes about this week’s list:

Looking at the dangerous listing, we are seeing a correlation between the pages targeted and celebrity news.  For example Justin Bieber, Usher, Twilight, Lil Wayne, and Harry Potter were in the Top 10 last week and continue to be a presence this week.  We are also seeing a reemergence of the various Zynga games.  This holds true from last week.  We expect to continue to see the same trend over the coming weeks.

As for the spamiest list, this week is showing multiple social game pages, celebrity pages, and even some soccer team pages.  We are expecting to see a continuous presence of social games in this category.  We may be seeing the soccer teams because of a few matches played in the last week. Due to the appearance of the teams of the field, we may assume there was an increase of visits to their Facebook pages.

Top 10 Most Dangerous and Spamiest Facebook Pages – November 23, 2010

Last week, we published the first of our weekly “Top 10” lists on the most dangerous and spamiest Facebook Pages.  If you would like to see last week’s lists and understand how we come up with the lists, check out our initial post here.

Here are this week’s Top 10 lists…

Most Dangerous

Rank	Last Week’s Ranking	Facebook Page	Threat Count	Last Week’s Threat Count
1	1	Justin Bieber	1236	670
2	34	Twilight	701	43
3	2	Texas Hold’em Poker	503	239
4	23	Dirty Dancing	483	55
5	101	Harry Potter	465	25
6	117	Usher	437	22
7	—	Mama Mary	418	—
8	22	Michael Jackson	407	55
9	48	Lil Wayne	405	38
10	37	YouTube	402	42

Spamiest

Rank	Last Week’s Ranking	Facebook Page	Threat Count	Last Week’s Spam Count
1	—	Lil Wayne	2150	—
2	—	Texas Hold’em Poker	2047	—
3	3	FrontierVille	1926	1155
4	—	Drake	1706	—
5	1	FarmVille	1622	1489
6	42	Underground & Gangsta Rap	1598	167
7	—	Justin Bieber	1512	—
8	2	Wiz Khalifa	1402	1477
9	63	Mafia Wars	1329	120
10	63	Fikra ve Espiri Dünyasi	1243	120

A few notes about this week’s lists:

Last week our “Top 10” included many social games.  This week we are seeing more celebrity pages included.  Perhaps this is tied to current events.  For example, Lil Wayne was just released from jail and has had a resurgence in news exposure this past week.  It will be interesting to continue tracking this trend in the coming weeks.

A lot of the activity related to the “most dangerous” list was due to a malicious application outbreak on November 17.  The app enticed the user with “See the shocking video of the 1-year-old girl who CARRIES TWIN SISTER inside belly.”  To see the video, the user had to authorize the application.  Once authorized, the app proceeded to spam the user and possibly the user’s fan pages to propagate, or spread.

A point of interest is the inclusion of Mama Mary, a Facebook page dedicated to Mary, the Mother of Jesus.  We don’t usually see religious-centered pages enter into the Top 10.  This one seems to be an instance of collateral damage.  The same malware application spammed to most of the rest of the Top 10 ended up covering this page.

Top 10 Most Dangerous and Spamiest Facebook Pages

SafeToBe.Me was created to help monitor and inform consumers of privacy and security issues in Facebook.  The application looks for spam, malware, phishing scams, automatic file downloads, and strong language.  SafeToBe.Me scans Facebook Pages, status updates, comments to statuses, and application posts, and notifies users of any potential spam or danger.  To better inform consumers, today we are releasing our first weekly “Top 10” list of the Facebook Pages containing the most dangerous content and the most spam.

Overall we monitor the Top 5000 popular Facebook Pages and any pages “liked” by our users.  We scan those pages for instances of spam or potentially dangerous links.  Even if a page falls out of the Top 5000 Facebook Pages, we keep it in our monitoring rotation.  Threats are typically found in posts by users on the Wall of a page or in comments made to a status update posted on a page.  We’ve broken done the categories into “Most Dangerous” and “Spamiest”.  Below are descriptions of these categories.

Most Dangerous Category: This category could be a post or comment containing a dangerous link. These links can lead to malware, phishing, or suspicious/dangerous Facebook applications that gather personal information and use people’s accounts for spam.

Spamiest Category: The spam noted could be Wall spam or comment spam. All the spam messages included in the tally contain at least one URL and have been posted multiple times across different pages and post comments.

Thus we present this week’s Top 10 lists.

Most Dangerous
Rank	Facebook Page	Threat Count
1	Justin Bieber	670
2	Texas Hold’em Poker	239
3	Social City	228
4	YoVille	210
5	FarmVille	187
6	FarmVille Cows	157
7	Cafe World	136
8	Restaurant City	112
9	FarmVille Sheep	100
10	SOY ARGENTINO	96

Spamiest
Rank	Facebook Page	Spam Count
1	FarmVille	1489
2	Wiz Khalifa	1477
3	FrontierVille	1155
4	Michael Jackson	900
5	FarmVille Cows	616
6	KopTuq mu xDe..!	596
7	FarmVille Sheep	533
8	FC Barcelona	530
9	Amr Khaled	526
10	T.I.	479

Notice that many of the Facebook Pages in our rankings are social games.  We know that social games are very popular on Facebook so it is not a surprise that malware and spam pushers are focusing on this category.

Why We Started SafeToBe.Me

Even though this is our second post (we anxiously got our first post out when we found a phishing scam on Facebook), we would like to welcome you to the SafeToBe.Me blog.  We will be using this blog to give updates on the SafeToBe.Me service, to communicate security threats as we find them, and to communicate our perspectives on staying safe in the social world.  To get things started, we thought it would be useful if we provided some background on why we started SafeToBe.Me…

The Social Web, which includes services like Facebook and Twitter, has changed the way people interact.  It has also changed the way cyber crooks work.  Historically, cyber crooks went after computers and networks.  So security tools were traditionally geared towards protecting those resources.  Your router/firewall is protecting your home network and your anti-virus software is protecting your computer from being infected.  Now, cyber crooks are focusing directly on You.  They are not going after you physically; they are going after you where you spend your time online, which for many of us today are in social networks like Facebook.

Social networks are great.  They let us keep in touch with friends, even when they are not physically close to us.  We can easily see what our friends are doing and we can share our thoughts with them.  Social networks, like Twitter, also let us find people with similar interests, as well as explore new interests.  They are also great communication networks because when we share something interesting, our friends can share it with their friends and so on. Social networks also give us a feeling of security because we are familiar with most people we are communicating with and when we are talking to strangers, we are out of their direct physical reach.  And, a nice aspect of using social networks today is that we don’t have to be at our own computer to participate.  We can use smart phones and devices like the iPad.  All of these factors that make social networks great, however, are also the same reasons why social networks are an ideal attack ground for a new generation of cyber attacks.  These attacks are everything from simple SPAM and scams, to various forms of social abuse, to more complex identity theft type attacks that try to gain access to your account.

We started SafeToBe.Me to fight off this new social form of cyber attacks.  So that you can enjoy participating in the Social Web.  So that you can be you, safely.