It's not easy being a well-known IT security pundit sometimes.

Poor Graham Cluley is currently the victim of a Facebook faker, a man who is pretending to be someone else, who is pretending to be our Graham.

It's quite confusing. It's also quite concerning when you add in the fact that the person the pretender is pretending to be is notorious serial killer Fred West.

On his ever-popular blog, Cluley said: "As someone who has received anonymous death threats from Facebook users in the past, I don't see the funny side in someone called Fred West creating a Facebook Page about me." Nor does Sneak, Graham. He was thinking about something else when he started giggling.

Cluley may be small beer, but what would happen if someone really important was targeted in the same way, asks Cluley, before unwisely using Sandra Bullock as an example of a celebrity with a huge following.

"Imagine if a celebrity with a huge following like Johnny Depp or Sandra Bullock had a fake Fan Page set up using their name," he said. "An imposter could potentially gather hundreds of thousands of Facebook fans, before one day deciding to update them all with a malicious link or send them a dangerous scam."

Such scams, we can only imagine, could include a link to a streamed version of Speed 2: Cruise Control, or Miss Congeniality.

You have been warned people. Under no circumstances should you follow Sandra Bullock on Facebook. Or, we suggest, at the cinema.

17 Mar 2010