Olive Garden food photo tagged you on Facebook? It’s a viral scam

Have you found yourself tagged in a friend’s photo album on Facebook? Are the pictures of food sold at the Olive Garden restaurant chain?

If so, be very careful where you click.

Messages include:

Olive Garden Restaurant is giving out free dinners for a full month! Pickup yours today !!!
[LINK]

or

Olive Garden is supplying free dinner plates for one month! Pick up your food now!!
[LINK]

or

Olive Garden Restaurant is giving out complementary dinners for a full month!! Get your meals this instant! [LINK]

Unfortunately, Facebook doesn’t prevent third-party applications from tagging your friends’ names onto photos on your wall – even if there are no people pictured in the photograph! In this way, scammers can spread messages and adverts virally across Facebook with a high level of confidence that your friends will see them.

So what happens if you click on the link used in the…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity 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 analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, or drop him an email.