The Most Menace Scams on Facebook

1. Guess who viewed your profile — A false claim that an app, often called “Who Views,” will show you who’s viewed your Facebook profile, but it actually installs a spying and spamming virus on your PC.

2. Explicit photos or videos of friends — Victims who click on supplied links are told they need to update their Adobe Flash viewer but they actually install malware.

3. Ads for fake products and services — Bitdefender identified 50,000 questionable domains supposedly selling pharmaceuticals and dating services. A third of the sites were also bogus replicas of genuine pages, used for phony sales or phishing for personal info.

4. Morbid images — a faked video supposedly of a woman being beaten to death is being used to attract victims to gruesome sites that either charge fees or install malware. Another recent fake video claims to show a woman being killed by her husband.
Sadly, Bitdefender predicts big growth in this category as a means of grabbing attention for all sorts of dubious marketing purposes, notably because of children’s increased tolerance of violent images.

5. Funny videos — this is a variation on No. 2 above, though it doesn’t claim to show friends, just people in embarrassing situations. Again, this is a ruse to get victims to install a special video player that is really malware.
A variation claims to link to explicit photos and videos of well-known celebrities — most recently Harry Potter star, Emma Watson.

6. A link to what purports to snap chat, for those who don’t know, Snap chat is an instant photo messaging service owned by Facebook; this scam leads to a malware download.

7. The big prize giveaway — this is the one we started this issue with. Most common recent bait includes a Disney-related prize and an SUV or luxury vehicle. Some current scam pages have upwards of 60,000 “fans.”
The pages are then renamed and used to bombard fans with spam-type advertising either from the original scammer or whomever they sold it to.

8. Danger targets — Scammers use “Yard Sale” and similar pages on Facebook to lure victims to specific locations where they may be robbed or assaulted.
In one recent incident in Lexington, KY, a couple responded to an ad supposedly offering a cell phone for sale. Instead, they were robbed and shot at by the bogus vendor in a parking lot.

9. Facebook identity theft — in this scam, crooks hack and clone a victim’s page and pose as them. Then they try to scam money out of the victim’s friends, usually by claiming to be in financial trouble. This one is the biggest THEREAT

10. A change of color — this one has been around for a while but is still going strong. Quite simply, it claims that an app can change the color of Facebook profiles from the default blue. It asks users to provide their sign-on details, which, of course, are then use to hack the victim’s account.
So what can you do to avoid these scams?
Facebook recently announced a new drive to clamp down on scammers by reducing the incidence of fake videos and news stories.
So that’s a step in the right direction.
But the fact is that crooks will continue to add to those 850,000 Facebook scams that Bitdefender found and the only way you can truly avoid them is by being VERY careful about clicking on links and practicing extreme skepticism.

Alert of the week

The FBI warns of a vicious new ransom ware scam that will lock up your PC and every hard drive attached to it — and then demand up to $5,000 to unlock them, using the Bitcoins virtual currency, which is untraceable.
The scam even includes detailed instructions on how to buy and use Bitcoins, and it features a countdown clock to show victims how long they have to pay up or face permanent data destruction.
There’s no guarantee you’ll get it back even if you pay.
Solution: Back up your data every day. It’s the only way to guarantee recovery.
And have a STRONG and reputable Internet Security

Till next time,

Frank Crescentini
Private Investigator
California, License PI # 18368