WARNING – A dangerous YouTube virus is going around on Facebook Messenger

Don’t open this link in Messenger! There’s a dangerous virus going around on Facebook Messenger at the moment. It makes it seem as if a friend has sent you a YouTube video of interest to yourself, but if you click the link your personal details could end up in the hands of internet criminals.

A lot of people have reported getting a private message on Facebook Messenger from someone they know, with a link to a YouTube video. Above the video there’s a short message with your name, so you think it’s about you or meant specifically for you. You really shouldn’t open the link, though! Also make sure that you send the person who sent you the video a message to warn them: they haven’t sent the link to you themselves but have probably been hacked. This is what the message looks like:

What to do?

So, what if it’s too late and you’ve already fallen for it? What should you do if you’ve clicked the link?

• First of all, open up your browser and check if there are any plugins you don’t recognise. If so, remove the plugins you don’t think you’ve installed yourself. You can skip this step if you’ve opened the link on your phone.
• Go to ‘Apps and websites’ in your Facebook Settings and then go to ‘Apps, websites and plug-ins’. Click on ‘Edit’ and then ‘Turn off’.
• Change your passwords, delete the messages and warn the friend who unwittingly sent you the link.
• Go to ‘Security and login’ in your Facebook Settings and then scroll down to ‘Setting up extra security’. Here you can choose to get alerts when someone logs in to your Facebook account on a different device than your own.