Cyber-Crooks Exploit Holiday Info Added to Facebook for Launching Scams

According to security researchers from ESET, cyber-criminals are sending false messages to the friends/relatives of people who'd been on a vacation and therefore told how they rejoiced or posted photographs. Utilizing the knowledge of holiday-goers the criminals are crafting messages falsely telling of emergencies so the friends/relatives could be scammed off their cash, the researchers explain.

Essentially, knowledge about the touring place of vacation-goers is making it possible for cyber-crooks to compromise their accounts and dispatch electronic mails to everyone on their friend-lists falsely stating that robbers had just mugged them.

Elucidating an example, Cyber-Crime Analyst Urban Schrott of ESET, Ireland said that suppose somebody added to his Facebook-page that he was waiting for his vacation trip to the Spanish island, Lanzarote then cyber-criminals, who habitually found out such information on Facebook user-accounts, would craft a bogus electronic message apparently from that user and send it to his friends. The message could state say, muggers attacked the e-mail sender in Lanzarote, therefore if the e-mail recipient could transfer him 500 euros via Western Union for settling matters at the holiday spot as also for returning home, Schrott added.

Schrott also cautioned that the scams seemed convincing and were happening repeatedly. If the vacation destination became known it duped numerous people into trusting the con and transmitting cash to "friend-in-agony." But when they'd come to know that their friend wasn't robbed, they'd be stunned, Schrott continued. Joe.ie published this on August 23, 2011.

Moreover according to Schrott, ESET, which conducted a survey in Ireland, asked PC-operators the volume of general and personal info they shared on social-networking websites. In reply, 33% of respondents reported never sharing the travel plans they had, while one within ten reported always sharing, and one within ten reported sharing with merely a select few. Suppose the worst violators of security were to be those who shared everything, then that's merely 9% of them. However in addition, if another 13% shared occasionally and 8% told a select few then almost 1/3rd did disclose certain information, thereby endangering their friends and themselves, the specialist elaborated. Irishdev.com reported this on August 23, 2011.

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» SPAMfighter News - 9/2/2011