Facebook Game Caught Serving Ads

Farm Town, which is a popular Facebook game with more than 9 million users, has been found to be serving ads, tricking viewers into installing malware as stated on Sophos website. The ads in question falsely claim that the user's PC is infected and can only be fixed by buying and running the anti-virus software being advertised. Much to the ire of security experts, Slashkey, the developer of Farm Town, has warned users to ignore the ads, but is yet to suspend them.

Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at Sophos, wrote "It may not be Farm Town's fault that a third-party advertising network is serving up malicious ads, but doing anything less is surely showing a careless disregard for the safety of its players. Until the makers of Farm Town resolve the problem of malicious adverts, my advice to its fans would be to stop playing the game and ensure that their computer is properly defended with up-to-date security software."

The rogue anti-virus software like the ones advertising in Farm Town have been generating billions of dollars per year in revenue to fraudsters. They are also known to steal credit card data by planting backdoors on end-user's computers.