Online hackers often find a variety of ways to entice unsuspecting victims to fall into their traps. Just last week, one such instance happened on Facebook, where a scam developed that used “Cheerleaders Gone Wild” as its disguise. Although Facebook's team caught on to the fiasco rather quickly, there is little doubt that the promise of naughty cheerleaders was too much for some of the social networking site's members to pass up.

It was reported that the affected Facebook accounts had messages posted with the title "Cheerleaders gone wild - have to see this." A photo of an attractive cheerleader accompanied the message.  A link that supposedly led to a wild video of cheerleaders was also offered, and clicking on the link led to a Security Check window that warned users of the video's content and that they must confirm that they were at least 18 years old to view it. 

This was followed by a phony anti-spam window that told users to click buttons 1, 2, and 3 and then click submit. Once the user did this, their account was labeled as liking the Cheerleaders Gone Wild page in addition to liking "Free ringtones every day" and "Funniest Videos on the Web" pages. Although the users themselves did not actually click that they liked these pages, this was transmitted via their newsfeed and made public.

The Cheerleaders Gone Wild scam was an example of clickjacking. Clickjacking, as the name might suggest, is when a click on a web page gets hijacked. This usually happens with the victim not even knowing that their click was redirected to something other than what they originally intended. 

Hackers can clickjack by creating iFrames. An iFrame allows the hackers to split browser windows into different parts. From there, the hacker can insert a code into the specific area of the web page they desire. This code is invisible to the victim, and once they click on the part of the web page that has been compromised, the hacking attack can begin. Hackers usually tend to insert the clickjacking codes on links that seem harmless.

Once a clickjacking takes place, the hacker can do a variety of malicious things.  For example, they could redirect you to a page with an embedded virus. They could trick you into making an online purchase, even though you clicked on a link or button to cancel or decline. Worse, they might even be able to trick you into turning on your computer's webcam so they can spy on you. Although these examples may seem extreme, the fact that clickjacking is so hard to detect makes them possible.

There are a few safeguards that can be practiced to protect yourself from clickjacking. In the case of social networking sites and the like, such as Facebook and Twitter, make it a common habit to log out of them after each session. As long as you are logged out, the likelihood of attacks are lessened. 

If you use Internet Explorer, disable JavaScript. Firefox users are better off, and they can use the NoScript add-on. NoScript has a ClearClick feature that counteracts clickjacking, and the add-on also allows users to block scripts selectively. The best tip, however, is to avoid clicking on links that seem suspicious or out of the ordinary.

For more on this topic, visit http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20015975-245.html?tag=mncol;title

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