Father catches daughter on her webcam? It's a Facebook survey scam

Filed Under: Facebook, Social networks, Spam

It might seem like the title of a rather seedy porn movie, but the truth is that a message spreading virally across Facebook about a father catching his daughter on her webcam is actually designed to make money for scammers.

Thousands of Facebook users are finding messages being posted by their online friends saying:

Look What happens when father catches daughter on her webcam. No Surveys! - <LINK>

Messages posted on Facebook

It's probably a sign of just how prevalent survey scams are today that the perpetrators of this latest scheme feel the need to say "No Surveys!" in their lure - but unfortunately, they're lying.

If you do click on the link you are taken to what appears to be a thumbnail of a YouTube video, showing a young woman in a skimpy plaid skirt. It's all rather reminiscent of Britney Spears's "Hit Me Baby One More Time" music video, but possibly suggests something more scandalous.

The truth is, however, that you're being asked to give permission to a Facebook application called "Epic". If you're foolhardy enough to grant it the rights, it will be able to access your profile, grab details of your friends, post messages from your account and even log in as any pages you administer.

Clearly that's not something that you would be wise to do, but many people are giving the rogue application permission to do precisely that - effectively handing over their account lock, stock and barrel to complete strangers.

And despite the claims earlier that you won't have to fill in any surveys... well, you will..

Each survey that the scammers trick you into completing earns them some more commission.

Meanwhile, the ne'er-do-wells behind this scheme have started posting more messages from your Facebook profile, driving even more people into visiting their link.

If you have been hit by a scam like this, check that your profile hasn't been tampered with. For instance, you should check to see that no rogue applications still have access to your account and remove them.

Here's a YouTube video where I show you how to clean-up your Facebook account:

(Enjoy this video? You can check out more on the SophosLabs YouTube channel and subscribe if you like)

If you want to learn more about security threats on the social network and elsewhere on the internet, you could do a lot worse than join the Sophos Facebook page.

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3 Responses to Father catches daughter on her webcam? It's a Facebook survey scam

  1. Kas says:

    Notice the survey calls itself a Facebook Verification? Many people would fall for that as a valid excuse for the survey.

  2. lol says:

    This video is on youtube though.

  3. WhenWillPeopleLearn says:

    Same scam video / survey is now spreading though facebook without the need to give permission to an app.
    The video now 'likes' itself on your feed via a clickjack when the play button is pressed.
    The survey then appears.

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About the author

Graham Cluley has worked in the computer security industry for more than 20 years, developing anti-virus software and doing quite a lot of talking about internet threats. He's won awards for his blogging, but is proudest of the text adventure games he wrote when he was still wearing short trousers. You can learn more about those (the games, not the trousers) at grahamcluley.com. Send Graham an email, subscribe to his updates on Facebook, follow him on Twitter and App.net, and circle him on Google Plus for regular updates.