In an effort to provide Facebook users with a more secure online experience, Trend Micro has announced it has expanded its partnership with Facebook to incorporate Trend Micro HouseCall, a royalty-free security solution which will help detect malware and keep devices secure for Facebook’s more than 1-billion users.
With trillions of clicks occurring every day on Facebook, the social platform is a tempting target for spammers and criminals. HouseCall will complement Facebook’s existing systems to mitigate these threats by detecting and alerting users to malicious activity that could compromise user security and privacy.
“HouseCall will give Facebook users an additional safeguard against the malicious attacks that interacting online can bring,” says Kevin Simzer, chief marketing officer, Trend Micro. “We are pleased to partner with one of the world’s leading social media networks to provide a free solution that will help protect the online security and privacy of billions of users.”
Potentially infected users are identified and notified by Facebook with the option to download the free version of HouseCall, which will check for and remove malware. HouseCall will begin its scan on affected accounts of users who choose to download the scanner, and users will be able to continue using Facebook while the scan takes place. Once the scan is complete, a message will alert users if the clean-up was successful or unsuccessful.
“The scanning process enables users to continue to work online in a more secure environment without unintentionally sharing malicious content or being infected from unsuspecting accounts,” says Simzer. “HouseCall helps make social networking safer on Facebook.”
Effective immediately, Facebook users’ accounts and devices have the opportunity to use Trend Micro’s free anti-virus tools to scan and clean their systems.
“We use a combination of systems to help protect people using Facebook from threats like malware. Incorporating the malware detection and clean-up capabilities of Trend Micro HouseCall into these systems will increase our ability to perform this important work,” says Chetan Gowda, software engineer at Facebook.