Don't 'invite' yourself to a Facebook threat!

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  •  Dec 12, 2013
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If you are an avid Facebooker, then beware of a new scam that is doing the rounds of the popular social netowrking site.

If you are an avid Facebooker, you must have been invited to click on posts like "Facebook is shutting down", "See who visited your Facebook profile!", and "Facebook is clearing their entire data base and deleting users"; that too, from people on your friend list. All that you get by clicking on such posts is your friends complaining about you sending the same post to them, thus forming a vicious chain. In some cases, you might unknowingly reveal your FB password to the scammers or unwillingly participate in online surveys as well, all at the behest of a click!

Such is the lightning fast speed of scams on the popular social networking site that no one has been spared from them. And if such malicious posts weren't enough, phishers have now taken the route of sending event invites to Facebook users. Take the case of the latest scam in FB town, which goes by the event title, "Who blocked you from his friend list?" Once you are tempted into clicking in the affirmative for this event, you'll be slyly invited to sign up. IT security and data protection firm, Sophos, claims that this bogus event invite has already tricked more than 165,000 people into signing-up, with a staggering 10.3 million users still debating whether to respond or not.

According to Sophos, the scammers embed instructions into the 'More info' section of the event's summary, which leads unsuspecting Facebook users into visiting webpages for online surveys or competitions, designed to earn commission for those behind the scheme. In some instances, users are also asked for a mobile phone number, which is then signed up to an expensive premium rate service.

So, think twice before accepting unsolicited invitations from suspicious events and clicking on links received via FB. When it comes to the virtual world, it's very simple to be fooled by a big bad wolf dressed up as grandma, which in this case would be a seemingly innocent 'event invite'. Remember, not every Red riding hood story has a happy ending! Brands


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