Scams aimed at targeting viewers looking for information or videos about the recent MH17 airline disaster have hit the Internet.
Whenever significant newsworthy events occur, such as the tragic flight of MH17 that crashed over eastern Ukraine, online scammers are always quick to exploit such news by luring online surfers to suspect and malicious websites.
More often than not this is achieved via social media. As usual, the more prolific scams come in the form of social media links that claim to show “previously unseen footage” or “additional insight” of some kind.
An example in this case, a link is spreading through Facebook with the caption “[ACTUAL FOOTAGE] Missile Fired From Pro-Russian Militant to Malaysian Airliner MH-17” and another reads “Video Camera Caught the moment plane MH17 Crash over Ukraine. Watch here the video of Crash.”
In this case the reader is forwarded to a page that asks you to share it to proceed. This part of the scam helps it go viral across social media. Then the user is presented with both a malware and survey scam – see screenshot below.
A yellow bar across the top of the webpage urges a user to install a “plugin” to see the video, but the “plugin” is actually malware (see more on this type of malware scam here.) Also after sharing the video on social media the user is presented with a survey scam which harvests a user’s personal information and makes them liable for further scams and spammy communication (read more about survey scams here.)
As for the video of missiles getting fired at flight MH17? Typically with these types of scams, the video does not exist, and users are likely to get forwarded to one of the several well-known videos of the wreckage or smoke that has been on the mainstream media.
The advice here isn’t new.
1. Avoid clicking sensationalist or suspicious links on social media websites.
2. Don’t download plugins or other software to “watch videos” when you are on untrusted websites.
3. Don’t share links on Facebook to proceed to the next step on a website.
4. Don’t complete surveys/questionnaires/rewards programs to proceed to the next step on a website.
5. Get your news from reputable media outlets only.
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