Osama bin Laden death video scam spreads virally on Facebook

A link which claims to point to a video of the death of Osama bin Laden has been spread virally across Facebook today, just hours after the death of the Al Qaeda leader.

The messages, posed as updates on Facebook users’ walls, claim to point to banned video footage of Osama bin Laden’s death:

SHOCKING NEW video of OSAMA BIN LADENS DEATH!!
Exclusive BANNED VDEIO footage of Osama Bin Laden being killed!!!

(In the screenshots used throughout this article we have obscured the image as some may find it disturbing).

Clicking on the link takes you to a Facebook page which urges you to like and share the link with your Facebook friends, before you can watch the “shocking” footage:

However, sharing the link with others just helps spread it further across the social network, and instead of a shocking video you are instead presented with an all-too-familiar survey which you are told you must complete before you can go any further.

The scammers earn…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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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, Bluesky, or drop him an email.

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