Facebook teams up with McAfee to prevent cyber hacking

London, Jan 14 (ANI): Facebook users will now get a free virus cleanup of their computers, if their accounts have been hacked into, before they return to the social networking website.

The move aims at reducing the surging rates of cyber hacking.

Facebook users in Britain, United States, Australia, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, France, Canada, Mexico and Brazil will be given over 7.5 billion pounds worth of free software for the purpose.

Users from other countries will be covered in the next three months.

Facebook users will receive a free six-month subscription to McAfee software under the plan.

After the trial is over users would be offered a yet unspecified discount for other "Internet Security Suite software".

The deal comes after malicious software or malware are creating problems for users across the world.

These viruses can spread across Facebook's global network hijacking user's PCs and sending messages to all their friends encouraging them to visit some websites. When people visit these sites they computers are attacked as well.

Elliot Schrage, Facebook's vice president of global communications, said the scheme was an "unprecedented step towards making the entire Internet more secure and reducing the possibility of threats being brought onto our service by unsuspecting users," reports the Telegraph.

He added: "Keeping the Internet secure requires that users, security vendors and Internet companies all work together."

Until now Facebook simply reset passwords of members whose accounts had been hacked or phished. (ANI)