A fake video of a woman dressed in a pink bikini has just gone viral with more and more Facebook users sharing the link as you read this.
By far thousands of social network users have shared the video with the heading: “Look what this girl is wearing on the beach in front of thousands of people!”.
The fake video spam, which earlier showed up two years back, is accompanied by a picture of a woman in a bright pink bikini along with a description which says, “During the summer holidays, this girl took the opportunity to do something unheard of! I bet no one can do the same.”
When users, out of curiosity click on the link, they are instantly redirected to a third-party website that pretends to be Facebook, where the video appears on the page, and the fake link is then shared on their own profile for others to fall for.
Users eager to watch the video are either encouraged to fill in an online questionnaire, or share the link before proceeding any further with the sole purpose of driving traffic to scammers’ websites, most of which either are riddled with spyware and links to malware. By encouraging users to take online surveys, the scammers get paid for every filled out questionnaire.
Another link, which recently made it to the news last week was the video of a giant snake eating a zookeeper. Graham Cluley, veteran security industry expert, reported that thousands of Facebook users were being duped into helping fraudsters earn money by sharing link of the snake video.
Security experts have warned users that if they don’t want to be a part of such a scam they will have to make sure that they only use a website like Youtube to watch a video, which never forces them to share any link on Facebook or complete an online survey before letting them watch the content.
[Source: The Inquirer]
