Facebook has partnered with Microsoft, McAfee, TrendMicro, Sophos, and Symantec to provide combined intelligence in order to offer protection to the social site’s 900 million users.
"Our URL blacklist system, which scans trillions of clicks per day, will now incorporate the malicious URL databases from these security companies to augment our existing level of protection," said Facebook. "This means that whenever you click a link on our site, you benefit not just from Facebook’s existing protections, but the ongoing vigilance of the world’s leading corporations involved in computer security."
According to Facebook, less than 4% of content on the site is spam and the social network plans "to make even more progress in the future" to reduce spam on its site.
Facebook is also offering the new AV Marketplace which allow its users to download free anti-virus software from one of the site’s security partners. The free, full version downloads are valid for six months.
"Facebook’s global community can now download for free powerful software to protect their computers from current and future viruses, and content security threats providing hundreds of millions of people free access to anti-virus software," said Facebook.
"We believe that arming our users with anti-virus software will help empower them to stay safe no matter where they are on the web."
Facebook users can access the software from the Facebook Security Page or at http://on.fb.me/FBAVMarketplace
The security companies will also provide security educational materials on Facebook’s security blog to help users keep their data and themselves safe.
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