Is Facebook a scammer’s Paradise?
Every day you come into contact with a new scam, survey or fake application on Facebook with bum links from scammers hoping to profit from your itchy clicking finger and it’s getting worse. So are the scammers just getting smarter or is Facebook getting lazy?
According to Sophos Threat Report 2011, the top three scams on Facebook are:
Likejacking Worms: Scammers set up a page with an intriguing title that draws the user in such as “Look what happens when this girl’s boss see’s her latest Facebook post!” Requiring you to like the page where there’s merely an empty space helps scammers profit from the sheer volume of traffic.
Survey Scams: Similar to the worms, you’re promised a juicy story or photo in return for you completing a quick survey. Guess what? You just added to another scammer’s commission. And on top of that, you’ve just spread this scam around to all your friends.
Fake Applications: this is one that’s taking hold quite a bit lately, applications with Promises of options like seeing who viewed your profile. This Can’t Happen! Welcome to another scammers paradise that you get to share with all your friends, again. Yay!
Sophos is one of the world’s leading internet security providers, providing information on how to secure your Facebook from potential threats.
Whilst the volume of scams seems to be increasing constantly, Facebook claims that their effort and effectiveness to combat this have increased proportionately, successfully suing some scammers in the process.
But Scammers are getting smarter and you can see a new scam sweeping yours or your friends Facebook or your friends every day making Facebook eerily reminiscent of the my time on MySpace; when you had everyone under the sun tell you they were lonely and wont you click their page to meet them?
Will Facebook ever be able to completely remove this trend of scams or will scammers continue to draw the crowds? Here’s an idea, think before you “like” and continue to add to these peoples growing revenue.
The full report can be read free online at http://www.sophos.com/sophos/docs/eng/papers/sophos-security-threat-report-2011-wpna.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment