What happened ?
Security company Bitdefender revealedthat the UK’s most c1icked—on Facebook scam attempts to trick you into thinking you can see how many people have viewed your profile.
Bitdefender says this is by far the most effective scam on Facebook, comprising 30 per cent of fake links that have been clicked in users’ News Feed. The company’s list of the 10 most clicked scams shows that criminals’ main tactic is to tempt users with scams relating to Facebook itself — for example, by promising to show you how to change the colour of your Facebook page from blue.
These particular scams can be hard to spot because they are presented as Facebook introducing a new feature. Only one scam in Bitdefender’s top 10 uses the bait of a celebrity sex video, which has previously been a common tactic used by hackers.
In 2013, millions of people fell for a scam claiming to show a sex tape of US pop star Taylor Swift. This year, the promise of a sex video featuring Barbadian singer Rihanna is more popular weapon for hackers,
Clicking any of the seams will take you to a malicious website that tries to infect your PC with a virus.
What should you do?
Be aware that scammers are increasingly trying to con you on Facebook by offering tools for the site that don’t actually exist. One way these may appear in your News Feed is because they’ve been unwittingly ‘liked’ by one of your Facebook friends. To keep yourself safe, install Bitdefender’s Safego, which is a free Facebook app that scans links you receive from your friends. If Safego identifies a link as malicious, you should click the button next to it to warn the friend that sent it.
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