Latest Facebook Phishing Scam Harassing Macedonian Netizens

Macedonian technology broadcaster it.com.mk has reported that it had got a list of over 18,000 passwords and usernames for Facebook accounts, allegedly acquired in a latest phishing scam.

Most of the accounts compromised were Macedonian, reported it.com.mk. Almost 10,000 Macedonian Facebook profiles on the famous social networking website Facebook are supposed to have been caught up in a large-scale instance of private data theft.

Police claimed that it is difficult to tell the exact number of victims, warning that the scam is continuing. Netizens are asked to be wary.

The phishing scam would commence with a credibly practical message in user's news feed, stating that something has been posted by a friend on his/her wall or that the friend had remarked on a photo.

The victim would have to click a link in order to read the message. The link would take the user to a page resembling the login page of Facebook; the only disparity being that on this occasion the page was not served to the user by facebook.com.

Once the user log-in on this page, he/she would divulge his/her password and username to the scammers.

Damjan Arsovski, editor of it.com.mk portal, stated that this is a simple mode of stealing a person's private identity, as the fraudster could log in instead of the authentic user and thus, read his e-mails and use those mails and private data for his own purpose, reported MACEDONIADAILY on September 11, 2009.

Arsovski suspected that this particular scam could prove even more dangerous for the users who used to exchange their company credentials or other private data through e-mail. However, the portal has begun a search engine in order to help users know whether they are among the unfortunates whose accounts have been abused.

Also, as per it.com.uk, the scam was still on progress as of September 8, when it got the list, and the hacked accounts were still expanding.

Experts cautioned that taking over users' accounts with social networking sites have rapidly become a part of the latest variant of the infamous Nigerian or 419 scam. Likewise, in August 2009, Trend Micro's security researchers found phishing e-mails sent to Facebook users had different invitations with headings "Friends", "Friends Gifts", "Pok", "Matching" and "Your Photos".

Related article: Latest Scam - Emails Threatening Death to Recipients

» SPAMfighter News - 10/3/2009