As technology evolves and offers us more ways to communicate and carry out daily tasks in a digital environment, cyber criminal techniques are also evolving. They are rapidly becoming more and more savvy with using technology to scam unsuspecting victims.
In a recent post WhatsApp users were targeted in a voucher scam which had been doing the rounds in the UK and Ireland. Claiming to be from one of your contacts, criminals set up a scam where you told you could claim a £100 voucher from well know retail brands or airlines such as Sainsburys and M & S. We are all learning that if something looks too good to be true, particularly online nowadays, then it probably is.
According to a recent article in The Telegraph scams have now made their way onto Facebook Messenger. Facebook Messenger is very popular now with over 900 million users and is currently ranked in the Top 2 messaging apps globally.
Recently there have been reports of Facebook users falling victim to this scam which installs software on users computers and devices to steal personal information – including usernames, passwords and financial details.
The scam presents in the format of a link sent from hijacked accounts of a saved photo in SVG format. Clicking on the link takes unsuspecting users off to a fake version of YouTube. The link asks users to add a chrome extension to their browser in order to watch a video. Once this extension has been installed, it has the ability to read and change the data of the websites visited.
According to computer security researcher Bart Parys ‘It looks like Facebook and Google have spotted the scam and have safeguarded against it. It seems that the Chrome extensions have been removed, and the SVG filetype is now being filtered for Facebook’ he said.
That’s a good question. And an important one. Unfortunately scams of this nature are on the rise and it’s important to be very vigilant when using social media websites and the Internet. As we highlighted in our recent blog about the WhatsApp scam, be careful about clicking on unsolicited links even if they are from a trusted friend or someone within your contacts.
Always ensure that your security and privacy setting are up to date and that where possible you add two-factor authentication to your accounts. By this I mean don’t re-use passwords. Many people use the same password across all of the websites they access on a regular basis. Come up with a strong password using a combination of uppercase, lowercase, special characters and numbers to strengthen your password.
Finally do your bit to make the web a better and safer place by reporting any suspicious activity you may notice to Action Fraud.
Posted By Wayne Denner
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