There’s a rumour about a Facebook app called “Facebook Fan Check”. The rumour says that after 2 days this app goes through friends list and somehow infects their PCs.
Some people have been posting messages on Facebook saying:
to all those using FAN CHECK APPLICATION, please delete it & all its pictures, it contains a virus & takes 24-48 hours 2 infect everyone on your friends list please copy and paste 2 your status to let everyone know
Firstly, malicious Facebook apps do exist. The ones I know of are called Posts and Stream applications. They’re not viruses but they try to trick you into providing personal data (called phishing).
Secondly, Fan Check Virus doesn’t exist, but nevertheless there is a danger. What’s happening is that the virus writers have created web pages infected with real malware and fake antivirus programs.
So if you search for Fan Check Application on Google, you’re likely to end up on the infected web page looking for information, and that’s how your PC gets infected. Clever, right? So all the people writing about Fan Check haven’t done any research and are actually helping to spread the real malware.
There’s a video explaining more about it here.
And it seems this isn’t the first time this strategy was used. Another fake Facebook virus called Error Check System works in the same way, if you Google for information on it you’ll likely end up on a web site with a fake anti-virus product.