Ex girlfriend Facebook scams use shocking imagery, but spread quickly

Filed Under: Facebook, Social networks, Spam

It's turning into quite a bad weekend for Facebook with chain letters, phishing attacks and now the promise of hardcore videos being used to spread scams virally across the social network.

The following messages are currently appearing very rapidly. We've had to obscure the thumbnails as many people will find them disturbing.

Ex girlfriend video scams on Facebook

Here's what the messages typically say:

[Video] - This is what Happend to his Ex GirlFriend!
[LINK]
Play Video! She could not walk properly for days!

and

Look what he did after her Ex girlfriend posted on his wall
[LINK]
lol What true pain both are having at this moment.?

Of course, there are people out there who find such links too tempting to resist. Here's what they'll see when they click on the link.

Ex girlfriend video scams on Facebook

It's the latest in a series of Facebook scams which ask you to click on the word "Jaa".

The victims probably don't realise that "Jaa" is Finnish for "Share", and they're helping the scam spread to their online Facebook friends. Typically such scams end up with you being taken to an online survey that will earn the scammer money.

Can I respectfully suggest that if you keep falling for scams like this, you try and get your kicks elsewhere on the internet? There's plenty of photos and videos of naked ladies out on the web which you can peruse at your leisure, without the risk of flooding the newsfeeds of your Facebook friends.

I've informed Facebook Security about this latest fast-spreading family of scams. Let's hope they can take swift and decisive action so their users are no longer at risk.

If you got hit by this scam, make sure you have removed the entries from your news feed (to stop them being shared amongst your friends) and check your profile has not any unwanted "Likes" under your "Likes and interests".

If you use Facebook and want to get an early warning about the latest attacks, you should join the Sophos Facebook page where we have a thriving community of over 100,000 people.

, ,

3 Responses to Ex girlfriend Facebook scams use shocking imagery, but spread quickly

  1. James says:

    I've pretty much just accepted Facebook is a malware and scam infested jungle at this point. Trying to convince 98% of Facebook users of this is a lost cause though. I can only assume exploitable holes are everywhere in this half baked outfits architecture at this point.

  2. Kevin says:

    None of these scams are exploiting holes in FB security. They're exploiting the users' naive behavior. It isn't a code problem when users choose to install bad apps and share fake warnings, just like it isn't a problem with bank security if checking account is empty after you give your girlfriend/boyfriend your debit card and PIN...

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title="" rel=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <pre> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

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.