Facebook users warned of scam

Facebook members were warned today of a rogue "dislike" feature luring users into giving away personal information to scammers.

The social networking website said it was investigating examples of the scam which tricks members into giving away permission to access their profile pages.

The scam was launched amid calls for the introduction of an official dislike feature to accompany the "like" button already in place, according to IT security firm Sophos.

Graham Cluley, of Sophos, said: "Facebook users should think carefully before they click on an unknown link in a friend's status update as these scams are becoming increasingly common.

"Giving away personal information in a survey and allowing an application access to your profile is extremely risky and Facebook users need to wise up to this rather than just clicking on links that they see, just because they appear to be from a trusted source."

Two versions of the scam were reported to Facebook by Sophos.

A spokeswoman for Facebook said the website disables malicious applications as soon as they are reported.

"We're always working to improve our systems and are building additional protections against this type of content," she said.

"As always, we encourage people not to click on suspicious links anywhere on the web, even if they've been sent or posted by friends.

"We also have a robust reporting system in place and encourage our users to report any content they suspect to be spam or have the potential to compromise a user's account through the 'flag' button underneath each post."