Spam, scams and new Facebook threats you should watch out for
2011 is fast becoming one of the most dangerous years in recent memory. Bad things are happening in both the physical and cyber worlds, in which we live and conduct our daily affairs. Bad actors are reeking havoc on innocent people, almost everywhere. Cyber-criminals are exceedingly good at scamming and harming Netizens, wherever they may live.
That preamble leads me into the matter that is on my mind, which I want you to save in your minds also. Cyber-crime is big business. The puppet masters pulling the strings, controlling the botnets that send out spam, scams and launch DDoS attacks, are hardened criminals, not hackers looking for notoriety. They have invested a lot of money in paying programmers to write malware codes, botnet installers, banking Trojans, and in Command & Control Server hosting fees, and often, in paying bribes to local police, to avoid being arrested if identified.
The goal of all of the bot masters is to get their remote control malware installed on as many computers as possible, turning them into spam sending zombies. Then, they lease out the use of these botnets to spammers. Spammers have levels also. There are master spammers and affiliate spammers. The Master Spammers produce the spam templates, arrange for the questionable and illicit products to be sold from shady companies, maintain the affiliate payment systems and supply target email databases.
Affiliate spammers buy into spam operations at a lower level and use their money to drive sales to the websites where the fake, or counterfeit goods are being sold. They are responsible for maintaining the current spam sub-culture. Without the army of paying affiliates, the Master Spammers would have to do all of the spamvertising themselves; like in the old days. That would make them much larger targets than they are now.
Since it is the affiliates who actually drive the spam business, let's consider some of their recent tricks used to relieve you of your hard earned money.
Email spam has actually been with us for over three decades. At first, it was purely commercial, for real products, and was sent to members of particular user groups at universities and big companies. Later on, when more individuals bought home computers and began getting Internet access, unsolicited commercial email exploded on the scene. They were led by the personal efforts of one Sanford Wallace, a.k.a: The Spam King, who began his Internet spamming business in 1995.
Spammers have come a long way in the intervening years since 1995. However, many of the same products that were being pitched back in the 90's are still being promoted today. These include fake Viagra and Cialis, bogus male enhancement herbs and pills, illicit prescription drugs - sold with the required prescription, counterfeit watches and apparel, pump and dump stock scams, Nigerian 419 scams and dating scams.
Every week, I write an article reporting on the previous week's spam statistics, by category and percentages. This is of particular interest to users of MailWasher Pro, an anti-spam filter for people using desktop email programs. They often use filters that I write and update to block spam from their inboxes. I must say, that my spam filters have proved to be very effective. ;-)
Lately, as spam filters become more and more effective at blocking junk email from being delivered at all, spammers have begun to target social networking sites, especially Facebook. What began as fun scams launched for kicks has turned into big business for affiliate spammers. Facebook has been over-run with all manner of scams and spam. To their credit, Facebook is just now implementing new anti-spam measures, targeting four particular common avenues of attack. These include the following currently employed tactics: survey scams, spam, clickjacking and malicious cross-site scripting.
For the past several weeks there have been a series of spam attacks on Facebook, with changing subjects, but all with similar tactics and payloads. What began (and continues) as links to alleged spicy videos, has now morphed into a fake "Dislike Button" scam. Facebook users are enticed with specially crafted posts to click on a button to enable a fake Dislike button. This appeals to many Facebook users, who may have inadvertently Liked some topic, only to later change their mind (there is already a means of reversing unwanted likes: go to "Edit My Profile" - next to your profile picture on the upper left, and select "Activities and Interests" from the menu, then click on "Show Other Pages").
Note: there is no legitimate Dislike button currently offered by Facebook. Unless they officially release such a feature, which would be well publicized through official channels and trusted news sources, all Dislike buttons should be regarded as fake and potentially harmful to your identity and your computer's security.
The current round of scams revolving around the fake Dislike button attempt to get victims to click a button to enable the bogus feature. Those who do are actually clicking on the "Share" button, which is hidden under the overlayed "Enable" button! This is known as "Click-Jacking" and is a very common trick used against Facebook members.
After the victim clicks the Enable button, the same scam message is posted to their Wall, and is added to their Liked items. In the background, obfuscated (scrambled to conceal its purpose), hostile JavaScript is run on their computer. There is a variation of this "Dislike Button" scam that asks users to copy and paste the JavaScript code directly into the browser's address bar. This then runs the same routines as the scam that shows the Enable Dislike Button over the hidden Share button.
Other scams on Facebook lead you to take a short online survey. This makes money for affiliate spammers. After completing these surveys, some of the scams then forward you to a web page where you will be presented with a fake virus scanner, or fake video that requires a missing "codec" to view it, or to a dangerous and hostile online game site, like "Play Sushi," which leads to infection of your computer (with pop-up ad-ware) and compromises your Facebook account, spamming all of your Friends.
For more information on the Facebook Dislike Button scam, and all other scams afflicting Facebook users, read the Sophos Naked Security, Social Networks blog articles. They maintain a Facebook account, which Facebook users can subscribe to.
To stay protected against the myriad of cyber-threats targeting all personal and business computers, install the best, legitimate anti-malware protection you can afford. I recommend Trend Micro Internet Security programs. They are designed to block the latest threats and use in-the-cloud technology for constantly changing malware definitions. This reduces to strain on your computer and offloads the heavy work of checking for new threats to their servers. Trend security products all include their Smart Protection Network, which instantly blocks access to known infected web pages, or pages containing possibly hostile, obfuscated JavaScript (such as the ones going around on Facebook, right now).
I hope this helps my Facebook Friends and blog readers to stay safe through vigilance and awareness of the threat-scape that is constantly changing, as cyber criminals alter their attack methods and delivery systems. Enjoy your online experience, but please practice "safe hex!"
If you like this article please share it.
The content on this blog may be reprinted provided you do not modify the content and that you give credit to Wizcrafts and provide a link back to the blog home page, or individual blog articles you wish to reprint. Commercial use, or derivative work requires written permission from the author.