Facebook suicide death video? Rogue application makes money for survey scammers

Only the ghoulish would want to watch a webcam video of a young woman committing suicide after she broke up from her boyfriend. Or so you would like to think.

However, this is precisely the bait being used by Facebook survey scammers who have used a number of rogue applications to trick users into clicking on links, and taking surveys that earn them money.

Innocent Facebook users are unwittingly sharing links such as the following:

Jessy, 21 yrs Girl from Miami Florida killed her self before a Cam after breakup. First time a Live suicide death video of true lovers in the history on a Cam (Weak hearts dont watch) [LINK]

If you make the mistake of clicking on the link, you are asked to give permission to a rogue third-party Facebook application.

Its intention? To spam the original message from your Facebook account (after all, you’ve just granted it permission to post status updates on your wall) and to direct you to an online survey which…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus industry having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, on Mastodon at @[email protected], or drop him an email.