Fake Pages set up on Facebook that manage to go viral only hours after being created show just how powerful spam networks on the social network actually are.
The past couple of blog posts have been geared at warning Facebook users of the various spam giveaways circulating Facebook asserting to give away various goodies in return for a user liking and sharing a Page with their friends and in some cases completing surveys that harvest their personal information and leave them vulnerable to spam.
In fact over the last few days Facebook has been flooded with this sort of spam. Fake giveaways purporting to offer Apple products, the Samsung Galaxy S4 and even to become testers for the highly anticipated Playstation 4 or X-Box 720 have been heavily circulated across the site.
And many of these spam pages have managed to become viral only hours after the spam Page was created. This is highlighting just how powerful a grip spammers have managed to obtain over Facebook via a massive network of fake profiles, fan pages and compromised accounts.
Spammers utilise a massive network of fake accounts to help their Pages go viral almost instantly. You see, in the world of Facebook, content that gets the most attention becomes the most visible within the Facebook community. Spammers take advantage of this by recruiting an army of fake accounts to Like their newly created spam Pages and Share/Like the content these fake Pages post.
Facebook falsely interprets this sudden burst in Likes and Shares to mean that the content posted by the fake Page is popular and thus the content gets leaked to genuine Facebook users, many of who will naively Like and Share the content themselves – exposing their own friends – in the hope of getting free products. And from there the spam content goes mega-viral.
And if you think the spammers have to manually create these fake accounts and Like their fan Pages then you’d be wrong because there is automated software available from the Internet that makes that potentially laborious task both easy and fast.
A quick search on the Internet turns up tools like Facedominator and Auto-Liker that proudly proclaim to be able to create fake accounts, get them to Like posts or fan Pages and to even friend other Facebook users. Using these automated tools, spammers are able to create massive networks of spam accounts, and using this network are able to make their fake giveaways go viral extremely quickly.
And judging by these latest attacks that have flooded Facebook in a matter of days, together accumulating hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of Likes, it is clear that Facebook is being left behind. They aren’t able to detect the fake accounts effectively nor remove the fake giveaway Pages the spammers create before they go viral.
And in the meantime the spammers are able to profit nicely as they fool users into completing survey scams that harvest a user’s personal information. However the range of scams that could be used in conjunction with these automated spam networks can include leading users to malware-laden websites, phishing attacks and even identity theft.
Remember it is absolutely vital never to Like these fake giveaway Pages, nor should you comment, Like or Share the content that they post as doing so not only exposes you but your friends as well. The reality is that many of these Pages can direct fans to survey scams as well as use a variety of other scams. Other fake Pages may accumulate Fans with the intention to scam them at a later date.
You don’t need to put your hand in the fire to see if you get burnt. These giveaway Pages are never going to be genuine. Authentic competitions are only promoted by the official Fan Pages of the merchants running them. Additionally a promotion or giveaway is likely to be fake if you see any of these tell-tale signs –
1. The content is posted from a Facebook Page that was created a short while ago.
2. The competition requires you to share and like a wall post or photo. This is against Facebooks promotional guidelines that specifically prohibits conditioning entry on Liking wallposts.
3. The competition involves completing surveys, questionnaires or reward programs as part of the entry process.
4. The competition requires you install software such as browser plugins or toolbars as part of the entry process.
5. The competition directs you to a website that instructs you to copy and paste the URL address (the address at the top of the window that begins with www.) into the webpage.
6. The competition directs you to copy and paste code into your browsers URL address bar.
Don’t be responsible for passing this nonsense on to your friends. Remember, on social networking sites like Facebook we all rely on each other to help keep us safe and one person sharing spam can expose their friends to danger.
Thanks to the Bulldog Estate for their input.
