12 Scams of Christmas: Social media scams
Forget e-mail spam. Scammers are now all over popular social media sites, and they're out to steal your identity. They're working overtime this time of year.
News 13's Jon Chrisos is On Your Side with our 6th scam of Christmas.
It's hard to hide from hackers. Recently, researchers in Calfiornia found that Facebook, with its billion users, has become a popular way to spread spam and other malware. The team studied the Facebook pages of twelve thousand users for four months. Almost half of them were exposed to at least 1 socware (social malware). The viral nature of social networks makes them especially vulnerable.
To help protect users, the researchers created an app. You can download and install Mypagekeeper to identify malicious links or ads posted on profiles. Tests show it works 97 percent of the time. And there are more ways to keep hackers at bay. Pay attention to how posts are worded.
Most spam posts contain keywords like wow, free, deal, omg, and so on because at the end of the day they need to attract a user’s attention. So when you see those posts, you should be wary of clicking on the link.
They send you to an external website or maybe a Facebook page. The first thing they do is, “Ok, you want a free ipad, fill out this form. And you have to fill out your birthday and your address.” In many cases, they ask for your cc details. All of this is just a front for id theft.
As always, when it comes to links, think before you click. It could help you avoid all that social spam. Something your friends will like.
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