Man in wheelchair falls down elevator shaft – Facebook clickjacking scam

Graham Cluley
Graham Cluley
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@[email protected]
@gcluley

A shocking video of a man in a wheelchair falling down an elevator shaft? Is that really what you want to watch?

Well, if it is, then you’re just the kind of person that a newly-discovered Facebook scam is looking for.

Messages on the social network have been seen like the following:

Man in wheelchair falls down the elevator shaft *SHOCKING VIDEO*

Man in wheelchair falls down the elevator shaft *SHOCKING VIDEO*
[LINK] This Video is really shocking. a man in a wheelchair is falling down the elevator shaft.

If you’re curious enough to click on the link you are taking to a Facebook page which looks like it is about to show you a video.

Scam page on Facebook

But think twice about clicking on the play button! The webpage will take your mouse click and silently use it to say that you “Like” the page and share it with your friends.

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As far as your friends can tell, you’ve just shared a link to a shocking video of a man in a wheelchair falling down an elevator shaft.

Those people who are running addons like NoScript (on Firefox) will see a page intercepting the clickjacking.

NoScript intercepting the clickjacking

The point of the scam is to draw traffic to online surveys – which earn the scammers commission and, in some cases, tricks users into signing up for premium rate mobile phone services.

Survey scam

If you are hit by a scam like this you should remove the page from the list of pages that your Facebook profile likes. Remember to remove any other pages you don’t remember liking at the same time.

The Pages that you like are shown at the bottom of the Info tab, under Activities and Interests. You may have to click on “Other pages you like”.

Remove page from your list of likes

Also, remove it from your newsfeed, reporting it as spam to Facebook, so that you no longer share the offending link with your friends.

Report the message as spam


Graham Cluley is an award-winning keynote speaker who has given presentations around the world about cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. A veteran of the computer security industry since the early 1990s, he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows, makes regular media appearances, and is the co-host of the popular "Smashing Security" podcast. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, or drop him an email.

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