Phishing scams are defined as someone who imitates a trustworthy source with the criminal intent of stealing sensitive information.
The likely payloads are of course credit card and banking info or usernames and passwords, but when it comes to Facebook the valuables these scams are after are your contact info, your friends list, and even your photos. Chances are you’ve seen at least one of these phishing scams litter your Facebook newsfeed in recent months, and chances are just as likely that you fell for at least one of them too.
Phishing scams rely on your curious nature and your need to know the latest information out there, so they utilize subject matter of horrific scenes or breaking news stories to entice you to click. Want to see who is viewing your Facebook profile? Maybe you’d like to find out what some guy did to his girlfriend (you’ll never believe it!)? Perhaps you just want to take a peek of some horrific scenes from an amusement park accident? ‘Curiosity killed the cat’, and in this case your curiosity in any of these subjects just got your Facebook account phished.
Not to say every post in your newsfeed is a phishing scam that one of your friends already fell victim to, but you just need to think before you click. If you’re not sure about a post just take a quick trip to Goolge, Bing or whatever your favourite search engine is to do a search for the topic you’re curious about. The results you find there will be real sources of information and could save you from accidentally littering dozens of people’s Facebook walls.
Fish for information yourself, don’t let it phish you.
