An adware called Secret Crush has spread throughout the Facebook community according to a recent article at The Register.

Based on the report, the widget is already being used by approximately one million users which is three percent of the total Facebook users.

“Unlike many social worms, the ‘Secret Crush’ propagation strategy does not rely on phishing or any sort of user-space customisation feature abuse. Rather, it relies on pure social engineering which is based on simple manipulation strategies such as ‘escalation of commitment’. Since users have freely chosen to install the widget at the cost of disclosing their personal information, psychologically speaking it is difficult for them to stop the process at that point,” notes Fortinet which is a security appliance firm.

Source: The Register