Facebook posting offering Little Caesars coupon is a scam, not a virus

Messages are circulating social media that warn readers not to interact with Facebook posts offering a Little Caesars 3 for 1 coupon because it’s a virus.

Such messages have been spreading specifically on Facebook, and an example of one such warning can be seen below –

Breaking News Do Not Download the Little Caesars 3 for 1 coupon it’s a virus you lose everything pass along to all your friends.

If you’re after a too long didn’t read summary, it’s this; Yes, these are scams and you should avoid interacting with them. No, they don’t lead to a virus. Those who click these links are taken to spammy marketing websites that try and extract as much personal information from visitors as possible.

It’s likely that the claim that this is a virus was started when Little Caesars themselves warned against the scam in a Facebook post and claimed that it could lead to a virus. This is an issue that we regularly run into when it comes to topics pertaining to cyber security. Someone sees some kind of scam or something that has no business being online, and instead of accurately investigating or describing the threat, that person vaguely shouts “virus” because they know a virus is something that is bad, just like what they’re seeing, so they must both be one and the same thing.

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But, of course, not all scams are viruses. In fact, not all computer malware are viruses, either. What Little Caesars were almost certainly warning about was a popular type of Internet scam where crooks falsely claim that well-known brands are giving away free products because it’s “their anniversary” (or some equally trivial claim) and that social media user’s need to click a link (and possibly share a Facebook post) to claim theirs.

But there is no free product; it’s just a ruse to lure social media users to spammy marketing websites that try and trick users into divulging their contact information, which is then used to spam them relentlessly. Or the spammy websites try and trick visitors into signing up for subscriptions. Either way, the visitor is left worse off, with little-to-no chance of getting whatever was originally on offer.

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We’ve warned of these scams time and time again on this site. However, in the case of them leading to websites laden with computer malware, this is rare, and we have seen no cases where a fake Little Caesars coupon is leading to a computer virus. What we have seen cases of is exactly what we’ve just described – links that lead to spammy websites, like the post below.

It’s important when we warn others of computer threats that we try and understand what exactly the threat is and how it works. Vaguely shouting the word “virus” will ultimately just lead to confusion, and it prevents the online community from being able to properly understand the threats they may encounter online. And it is this understanding that will lead to us being able to avoid such similar threats in the future.

To learn more about fake Facebook competitions, read our post here.