Facebook adds Microsoft, McAfee, TrendMicro, Sophos and Symantec as friends to its Security team.

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This move will help all 901 million Facebook members defend themselves against viruses, spam and phishing attacks, as well as extensive automated enforcement mechanisms that quickly shut down malicious pages, accounts and apps.

The creation of Facebook Anti-Virus Marketplace was made in an announcement earlier today:

“Starting today, we will be incorporating the combined intelligence of McAfee, Microsoft, TrendMicro, Sophos, and Symantec to Facebook’s existing database of malicious URLs, and offering a wide selection of anti-virus software to our users.”

“This program will help us provide even better protection to those using Facebook, no matter where they are on the web. Facebook URL blacklist system, which scans trillions of clicks per day, will now incorporate the malicious URL databases from these security stalwarts to augment protection. “

This means that whenever you click a link on The Social Network, you benefit from Facebook’s current protections, but the “ongoing vigilance of the world’s leading corporations involved in computer security.”

At the moment, less than 4% of Facebook content shared is spam (compared to nearly 90% of email).

Get the free antivirus downloads here