See out for these Facebook ‘like’ scams – and how to avoid them
F acebook users proceed to fall for the same old scams: "like this post for the chance to win a holiday to Barbados", or "share this post to be one of the fortunate 1,000 users Mark Zuckerberg is providing $Four.Five million (£3 mn) to", and "click attending to the Total Wipeout tour coming to a city near you."
So according to Good Morning America, this is legit. So here goes. THANK YOU, MARK ZUCKERBERG, for your forward-thinking.
T hese Facebook campaigns are all fake, designed to "farm" likes and get millions of eyeballs in front of a scam. Once the fake pages, events and profiles garner enough likes, Facebook’s algorithms automatically float them to the top of millions of people’s newsfeeds, and the scammers swoop in. They switch the content of the posts to trick people to give out individual information, or coerce them into downloading malicious software.
Earlier this month, a fake Facebook page claimed it would bring the obstacle course from popular Big black cock program Total Wipeout to different catches sight of across the UK.
It was later blocked from Facebook, and found to be a scam that was collecting individual details from users such as their birth date and email address.
A s many as five per cent of accounts on Facebook could be fake, according to the social media company, a number that has been growing year on year. Albeit the exact number of fake profiles isn’t clear it could be more than one hundred seventy million. Facebook, which has 1.6 billion monthly active users, fights to stop these accounts from getting millions of likes as they are good at posing as legitimate and harmless.
Posts that emerge harmless at very first are often switched later on to phish for users’ individual data, or encourage them to download malware.
Tips to avoid being hacked on Facebook
Because Facebook is a social network, we tend to trust what people post – after all, they’re mostly friends, colleagues and relatives. This makes it far lighter for scammers and hackers to get you through "social engineering" – emotionally manipulating you to disclose individual details.
Here are five tips and tracks to avoid Facebook scams.
1. If it looks too good to be true…
. Then it most likely is. Treat every post with a healthy dose of skepticism, especially if the post has an emotional pull in the headline, or is suggesting something that looks too good to be true.
Two. Only like posts from brands and people you know
One way to avoid being duped by scammers is to only like and share posts from brands and people that you trust. Stick to verified accounts, your friends, and brands you’ve interacted with before.
Trio. Be careful about providing permissions
Always check what data is being asked for before clicking “accept” to third party terms and conditions on Facebook. Last year, the “What are your most used words on Facebook?” quiz, which was collective over sixteen million times in a weekend, gathered the private information, friends list, IP addresses and device information from millions of users.
Four. Review your likes
Look through the list of posts you have like and collective in the past. If the content of any of them has switched to something that looks suspicious unlike or unshare it, and report it to Facebook.
Five. Get out of the liking habit
Think twice before liking or reacting to a post, especially if it asks you to like or share, and offers you a prize for doing so. Not only does this permit Facebook to create a detailed dossier of your likes and behaviours, in order to track you better, it also helps scammers to disseminate their posts more widely on the social network.
6. Witness out for multimedia
The most common scams to avoid are viral movies, profile customisation implements, who viewed your profile plug-ins and free giveaways. Games or quizzes that ask for an extreme amount of private info are also crimson flags.
Witness out for these Facebook – like – scams – and how to avoid them
Observe out for these Facebook ‘like’ scams – and how to avoid them
F acebook users proceed to fall for the same old scams: "like this post for the chance to win a holiday to Barbados", or "share this post to be one of the fortunate 1,000 users Mark Zuckerberg is providing $Four.Five million (£3 mn) to", and "click attending to the Total Wipeout tour coming to a city near you."
So according to Good Morning America, this is legit. So here goes. THANK YOU, MARK ZUCKERBERG, for your forward-thinking.
T hese Facebook campaigns are all fake, designed to "farm" likes and get millions of eyeballs in front of a scam. Once the fake pages, events and profiles garner enough likes, Facebook’s algorithms automatically float them to the top of millions of people’s newsfeeds, and the scammers swoop in. They switch the content of the posts to trick people to give out private information, or coerce them into downloading malicious software.
Earlier this month, a fake Facebook page claimed it would bring the obstacle course from popular Big black cock program Total Wipeout to different catches sight of across the UK.
It was later blocked from Facebook, and found to be a scam that was collecting private details from users such as their birth date and email address.
A s many as five per cent of accounts on Facebook could be fake, according to the social media company, a number that has been growing year on year. Albeit the exact number of fake profiles isn’t clear it could be more than one hundred seventy million. Facebook, which has 1.6 billion monthly active users, fights to stop these accounts from getting millions of likes as they are good at posing as legitimate and harmless.
Posts that emerge harmless at very first are often switched later on to phish for users’ private data, or encourage them to download malware.
Tips to avoid being hacked on Facebook
Because Facebook is a social network, we tend to trust what people post – after all, they’re mostly friends, colleagues and relatives. This makes it far lighter for scammers and hackers to get you through "social engineering" – emotionally manipulating you to disclose private details.
Here are five tips and tracks to avoid Facebook scams.
1. If it looks too good to be true…
. Then it most likely is. Treat every post with a healthy dose of skepticism, especially if the post has an emotional pull in the headline, or is suggesting something that looks too good to be true.
Two. Only like posts from brands and people you know
One way to avoid being duped by scammers is to only like and share posts from brands and people that you trust. Stick to verified accounts, your friends, and brands you’ve interacted with before.
Trio. Be careful about providing permissions
Always check what data is being asked for before clicking “accept” to third party terms and conditions on Facebook. Last year, the “What are your most used words on Facebook?” quiz, which was collective over sixteen million times in a weekend, gathered the individual information, friends list, IP addresses and device information from millions of users.
Four. Review your likes
Look through the list of posts you have like and collective in the past. If the content of any of them has switched to something that looks suspicious unlike or unshare it, and report it to Facebook.
Five. Get out of the liking habit
Think twice before liking or reacting to a post, especially if it asks you to like or share, and offers you a prize for doing so. Not only does this permit Facebook to create a detailed dossier of your likes and behaviours, in order to track you better, it also helps scammers to disseminate their posts more widely on the social network.
6. Witness out for multimedia
The most common scams to avoid are viral movies, profile customisation implements, who viewed your profile plug-ins and free giveaways. Games or quizzes that ask for an extreme amount of individual info are also crimson flags.
