Social networking giant Facebook has said that it has been working with Kaspersky Lab to identify and remove malicious software on the site.

According to a Facebook security engineer, ‘(We are) working with Kaspersky Lab, bolstering a program implemented with other online security firms including ESET, F-Secure and Trend Micro. Thanks to the collaboration with these companies, in the past three months we have helped clean up more than two million people`s computers that we detected were infected with malware when they connected to Facebook… In these cases, we present a cleanup tool that runs in the background while you continue using Facebook, and you get a notification when the scan is done to show you what it found. The program uses a combination of signals to help find infections and get the malware off of your computer for good, even if the malware isn`t actively spreading spam or harmful links.’

An employee of Kaspersky Lab said in a separate blog post, ‘Facebook is a major aim for phishers: one in five phishing scams targets Facebook notifications. So be vigilant when you receive emails appearing to be from Facebook: as they can be fake. There are lots of Trojans targeting Facebook users as well.’