Can you get a computer virus from a social media site?

Viruses and other types of malware are commonly associated with spam emails and pop up advertisements, but as the popularity of such social media websites as Facebook and Twitter continue, hackers have begun to use them as a forum for spreading viruses, too. Unfortunately, no websites are totally safe from hackers, so you must always be careful about clicking links, especially if it's for a website or company you haven't heard of.

You may have seen it before - a friend of yours on Facebook who is suddenly posting a lot of spam-like links on everyone's walls. This means that his or her Facebook account has most likely been hacked. Sometimes, the link is just annoying advertisements, but in other situations, the post contains a poisoned link that will end up with you needing virus removal if you happen to click on it. In the event that a post like this shows up on your wall, delete it and try to notify your friend whose account may have been hacked.

If, on the other hand, your account has been hacked, and posts have been sent to your family and friends, there are a few things that you should do.

First, send a message out to everyone via social media or email warning them that your account has been compromised. Then, log in to whichever social media account was hacked and change your password. There are also a few extra security options you can enable, such as Facebook's log in notifications. Next, run a virus scan on your computer.

If anything unusual is detected, you might want to consider contacting a local PC repair center for more in-depth virus detection and removal methods.