Scammers on Facebook have once again proven themselves to be cold-hearted opportunists, unafraid to take advantage of personal tragedies for their own financial ends.
In the latest scam seen surfacing on the social network, innocent users are being tricked into believing that they will see a video of a crash at an air show which resulted in the death of a British pilot.
Flt Lt Jon Egging was killed during an RAF Red Arrows display at the Bournemouth Air Festival this weekend.
The news of the death touched many people who are fans of the world famous Red Arrows, and over 170,000 people have joined a Facebook group in Jon Egging’s memory.
Although the public’s generosity and compassion must be a comfort to Flight Lt Egging’s widow, it’s unlikely that she would find much solace in the scams which are taking advantage of her husband’s death.
For instance, this page on Facebook:
It looks like you’re going to see a YouTube video of the Red Arrow crash at the air show. But in fact what you’re looking at is a clickjacking scam. Clicking your mouse on the video thumbnail will initiate a process which will say that you like the page, and share it with your friends.
Those people who are running addons like NoScript (on Firefox) will see a page intercepting the clickjacking.
But the aim, of course, is to spread the link as far and as wide as possible. The scammers hope that your friends will see you linking to the page and follow your lead.
Ultimately, you will be directed to the all-too-familiar online survey, which earns commission for the scammers.
If you got hit by this scam, make sure you have removed the entries from your news feed (to stop them being shared amongst your friends), marking them as spam if you like, and check your profile does not have any unwanted “Likes” under your “Likes and interests”.
Make sure that you stay informed about the latest scams spreading fast across Facebook and other internet attacks. Join the Sophos Facebook page, where more than 100,000 people regularly share information on threats and discuss the latest security news.
