 |
||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|||||
|
|
||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
|
A powerful spam attack has hit Facebook which automatically posts links asserting to show Rihanna’s sex tape along with an obviously photoshopped image. Facebook events, pages, groups and walls are facing a serious case of spam as spammers attack Facebook in what is appeared to be a very successful and viral outbreak of devious links.
A screenshot of the links being spammed on Facebook.
Link text
[Vide0] RIHANNA S3x Tape w1th his boyfriend
I l0st all respect f0r her The attack comes at the same time as many Facebook page owners faced a bout of diet spam as fake profiles spammed their comments with links to dubious “miracle remedy” products notorious for scamming those who enter into hard-to-cancel subscriptions. And this latest attack also focuses the spammy links on the comments section of posts. Upon clicking the spam link a user is asked to “generate a code” by copying a URL address from a pop-up window and then pasting the URL address (Ctrl + V) into a box. 
The spam links lead you to this page.
This action causes the Facebook account to become compromised and the infected account will begin posting startlingly large amounts of comment spam to many of the Pages and Groups that the Facebook user has joined or liked. From what we have seen the comment spam will typically assert to show a sex tape from pop star Rihanna along with a photoshopped image of the star. It is possible that other variants and spam links are being used as well. This spam attack is much more successful than previous attempts that we have seen. A test account we intentionally infected managed to spam up to 11 posts per Page (all Pages were owned by us so we deleted the links straight away). Of course this likely means that Page owners will likely spend a substantial amount of time in the next few days cleaning up spam posts from the comments of their posts. We were unable to determine the “end game” of these scams. In all browsers we used the linked site hung and didn’t go anywhere. Possibly an error by the spammers or the spammer only wanted to spam Facebook Pages. [ update: reports suggest in at least some variants the 'end game' is a survey scam where victims are asked to complete useless surveys that harvest their personal information.] The advice here is incredibly simple and something we’ve explained plenty of times on this site. Don’t click on suspicious links on Facebook! And don’t copy and paste “code” from your Internet browser. In this case you’re spamming all of the Pages and Groups your Facebook account is associated with and making yourself look very foolish in the process! If you have fallen foul of this attack then logout of Facebook, log back in and change your password (just to be sure). If you’ve fallen for a variant of this scam that involved installing a Facebook app then make sure you uninstall it or if you’ve installed a browser extension make sure you remove it as well. And also be polite and remove the spammy posts you made on the Pages that you liked! Have you seen these spam posts? Did you fall for the spam attack? Let us know. Thanks to the Black Knight for the heads up! Did you find this article useful? If so, sign up for our RSS Feed or feel free to join our growing Facebook community or our Twitter page for all our latest articles and blog posts! About the Author
Craig Charles Haley is a Computing graduate from Plymouth University and writes about the Internet, specifically about the power of social media and the many dangers it presents such as privacy control and how it can be used to spread misinformation. He also writes about Internet security and how to keep safe on the Internet. He founded ThatsNonsense.com in 2009 and serves as its editor. You can read his opinions and ramblings at www.craigsspace.co.uk
|
|
