Malware has been a growing concern for Facebook Inc., who announced yesterday that it would be partnering with ESET to incorporate the IT security vendor’s anti-malware software directly into Facebook’s systems.

“Compounding the challenges for defense, most people lack basic anti-malware programs that could protect their devices or clean up infections more quickly,” Facebook Software Enginner Cheta Gowda wrote in a blog post on Wednesday.

This is not the first such partnership for Facebook Inc. In May, the company announced that it would be teaming up with IT security firms F-Secure and Trend Micro to incorporate the companies’ anti-malware programs into Facebook’s existing abuse detection and prevention systems.

Gowda wrote: “A larger number of providers increases the chances that malware will get caught and cleaned up, which will help people on Facebook keep their information more secure.”

Gowda’s words echo a similar statement he made in the May announcement, where he wrote: “A single product isn’t sufficient to defend against all modern security threats.”

How it works

ESET’s tools are incorporated directly into Facebook’s programs and run in the background.

If a Facebook user’s device is acting strangely when it accesses the social network, the site will warn the user that their device may be infected with malware and prompt them to run an anti-malware scan.

The scan is free and will allow users to see scan results and disable infected software without ever leaving Facebook.

The tools added by F-Secure and Trend Micro earlier this year are also available for use through Facebook and work similarly to ESET’s software. When an infected device attempts to access Facebook, the site will alert the user and prompt them to use one of the anti-malware programs.

Gowda’s blog posts on the tools note that each program contains distinct malware libraries and works against different types of threats, so users should use the recommended programs regardless of what anti-virus software they might already have installed on their computers.

The programs are kept up to date, and once the scanning software completes its task, it automatically removes itself from the user’s device, so there is no maintenance required on the part of the users.