Facebook Messenger: A Weapon of Cyber Scoundrels?
According to what FBI has warned about, Facebook Messenger is being used by cyber crooks to entrap the users into opening malicious links.
These links are a pathway for the wrongdoers to the personal data of the user.
FBI officials of the Portland office were quick to take the scam into account and released a cautionary warning about the latest prevalent trickery that is taking place. Facebook Messenger was emphasized upon pretty clearly by the feds, even before they had confirmed about the rip-off happening on other messaging apps as well. The feds originally in their statement, had warned the public that Facebook messenger is the single area of concern but later, rectified their statement when traces of the scam showed up on other platforms too.
It’s not just Facebook’s messenger that’s twisted between the shackles of the cyber misdeed, there are other instant messaging apps in the list too. The agenda behind the scam is obtaining the personal details of the users, like login credentials for social networking sites, such as Facebook, by getting them to click on the malicious links that come along with a URL, in their inboxes.
With the objective of compelling the victims to click on the shady URL, a question is ingeniously placed, which reads, ‘Hey I saw this video. Isn’t this you?’ (Now who could say no to that?)
The number of people victimized by this scam is indefinite and so is the cyber cons’ method of making through this. Nonetheless, it’s no surprise that the login credentials including passwords and other details are marketed on the vicious internet.
A fraudulent, Facebook login page lookalike is created. The people are deceived into believing that they are logging into their Facebook. Any details mentioned therein are stolen and could be used to log into other sites where the same credentials are used. According to the feds, other forms of this scam are way too direct and directly wrest the data by asking to fill credentials.
A very well-known version of the scam reads, ‘Alton Towers is giving away 5 free tickets to 500 families.’ Another variation read, “we’re giving 5 free passes to 500 families to celebrate our 110th birthday!’ The clicker is later directed to an online survey form, which needs to be filled and is promoted to forward it to friends within the instant messaging app.
The scam was excavated on the Messenger of Facebook, but moreover, now WhatsApp and various other applications aren’t left alone either.
