Facebook scam with aggressive spreading mechanism

In a new Facebook scam with an aggressive spreading mechanism, users are informed through the platform’s own notification system and by email that they have been made administrators of an unknown page.

The hope of the scam authors is that users will be curious enough to click through to find out more, according to BitDefender.

When landing on the fake Facebook page, they are re-directed to a different, malicious page where they are supposed to provide their email and shipping address in order to take part in an alleged test session of the iPad 2.

The bait is more interesting as scammers announce that Apple is giving away for free a total of 10,000 iPad2 for review purposes only.

“This scam is very aggressive and efficient at the same time because it uses two Facebook specific spreading mechanisms which ensure high visibility: notifications and direct email,” commented Catalin Cosoi, Head of the BitDefender Online Threats Lab. “The main social engineering elements are on the one hand, getting users curious about why they were made admins of a page and on the other, the classic iPad bait. In this case, the device is supposed to be given away for free, but sent through mail, for testing purposes.”

If you come across this scam, do not provide any details through the received form. Second, remove yourself from the admin list of that page.