If you’re one of the many people who (for some strange reason) use facebook, then be on the look out for a phishing scam that is effecting the social network site.
TechCrunch are reporting the strange facebook scam which involves users being directed to a bogus facebook page and asked for their account details.
The scam involves a notice appearing on the wall of user profiles as a message from a friend, saying “Hey, I got a new facebook account. Im going to delete this one, so add my new profile” then with a link that appears to be a link to the new profile. The actual link goes to a URL on view-facebookprofiles.com, a domain registered (and whois protected) on Namecheap and hosted at Softlayer that looks identical to the Facebook login page:
Users fooled into resubmitting their Facebook details on this page then have their Facebook accounts hijacked and all of their contacts receive a similar message, propagating the phishing scam.
The reason behind the scam isn’t entirely clear, though given the kind of information that some people are willing to share on facebook and other such sites, there is a very clear data security issue.
On a personal note, I still don’t really get facebook. I know I am outside their target demographic so perhaps that’s why the nature of the site eludes me and why I’m not excited about sending ‘friends’ random shite or writing nonsense on a ‘fun wall.’ Needless to say, most of my facebook friends will never see this post because they see no worth or reason for blogging.
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Phishing Scam Targeting Facebook Users
How about an anti-social network : hatebook
Wrote the following comment on Mar 27, 2008 at 8:33 pm
I knew facebook was stupid! Keep up the blogging.
Wrote the following comment on Mar 28, 2008 at 3:17 am
so you don’t “get” facebook? do you think seinfeld isn’t funny? just wondering if it’s an american thing. why do you think you’re outside their target demographic?
man i think it’s fun. maybe you haven’t had fun because people don’t send you hatching eggs and potted plants? i will have to fix that, then. :) hehe
Wrote the following comment on Mar 28, 2008 at 3:25 am
You know Marcie, you’ve inspired me to write a post about why I don’t get facebook, so watch out for that. But in the meantime you’ll notice that my facebook is stripped down the the bare bones and I am part of no network and have virtually non applications installed as well as no real information about me present. I am in effect one big facebook party pooper! :-)
Wrote the following comment on Mar 29, 2008 at 3:18 pm
I had never heard about this until reading this post. When logging into a website I always check the url, think it has something to do with the amount of ebay and paypal scams that use to go on so many years ago. New “phishing” features in browsers and Anti-virus software also make it “a safer experience”.