The latest Facebook scam is circulating, and just like similar scams that have circulated weeks prior, this scheme relies on the popular social engineering trick of telling potential victims that failure to act will result in them losing their Facebook account.
Earlier this month we warned users about scams urging victims to install rogue Facebook applications by claiming that refusal to do so will result in account deletion. Again this week one of these scams in a slightly altered format is circulating again with great success.
Again just like a recent scam that involved baiting users with the lure of removing the Facebook timeline, this recent scam is able to take advantage of a major Facebook security loophole and create notifications on a user’s notifications menu at the top of their Facebook page (the globe icon) thus helping the scam circulate.
Installing the application that appears via the notification feed will result in you spamming your friends in the same way, and you will also see a screen prompt like the one below.
Installing the Facebook app will result in this message
text reads –
WARNING: Announcement from FACEB00K Verification Team.All Profiles Must Be Verified Before 10th June 2012 To Avoid Scams and Scams Under the SOPA ACT. The Unverified Accounts Will Be Terminated. Verify Your Accounts By Below Steps.
Clicking the link below the box, in this case, leads victims to a survey scam which are designed to harvest a victim’s personal information. If you’ve installed an application and have found yourself spamming your friends, follow these instructions to remove the app.
In this specific case the red flags in the message itself are abundant. Firstly the message is written in poor English with plenty of grammatical errors. Facebook is spelt with two zeros in place of the letter “o”. The SOPA Act is merely proposed legislation, not law, so to assert Facebook accounts need to be verified because of it does not make any sense.
And if that wasn’t enough – as ever – our piece of universal advice is to
1. Never trust links or messages that claim failure to act will result in you losing your Facebook account.
2. Never install Facebook applications unless you know the developers. NEVER install applications to “save” your Facebook account.
3. Never complete surveys you come across via Facebook.
