Tag: SCAM

Security company BitDefender -- which recently released the Safego app to protect your Facebook account -- has put together an infographic illustrating information about the state of scams on the social networking site. At an impressive 7,532 pixels tall, the graphic offers plenty of insight into the dark underbelly of Facebook. The company found profile insight apps -- like those which ...

No, despite what you may have heard on Facebook and Twitter, Charlie Sheen is not yet dead. With the eye-catching title of "RIP! Charlie Sheen found Dead at his House," a massive clickjacking hoax is doing the rounds on Facebook and Twitter. Clicking the link will take you to a fake YouTube page -- and if you click anywhere on the page, the hoax will infect your Facebook profile and begin ...

In a rather odd and haphazard move, Facebook has now made it possible for apps to read your home address and mobile telephone number. In the "Request for Permission" window -- the one you have to accept before using an app on the Facebook platform -- look out for "Access my contact information", with the subtitle "Current Address and Mobile Phone Number" (see image above). You'd think that ...

Email scams, or phishing, aren't going to disappear any time soon. As much as we'd like to think that people we know aren't taken in by messages like the one in the screenshot above, chances are good that you know of someone who has taken the bait. It's easy enough to recognize a scammy email message if you know what to look for, so let's break it down. Take the jump and we'll dissect this ...

Once upon a time, rogue antivirus apps were pretty much one-trick ponies. They tried to closely mimic the interfaces we recognize from apps like AVG and Microsoft Security Essentials and use goofily-combined names like Super Windows Antivirus 2010 Gold Pro. However, as Sunbelt reports on their official blog, malware authors are now branching out into other types of bogus apps in order to lure ...

It's a bit more intense reading than Google's Teach Parents Tech series, but Season's Warnings from Trend Micro is definitely something your less-techy friends and family members should read. Trend's guide covers several important topics, like phishing, giveaway scams, and wireless security. While it's only a dozen pages long, there's still plenty of good information inside that will help your ...

iPhone users have fallen victim to rogue developers who are hacking accounts and using them to buy fake apps, stealing Apple customers' money and driving up the popularity of their useless apps at the same time. TheNextWeb has a thorough report on the scams, along with plenty of testimony from users who say they've been duped out of hundreds of dollars. At first, it seemed like this ripoff was ...

Look, Twitter, I know you're busy taking care of things like possible revenue streams and performance glitches, but do you think we could maybe take some time and do something about all the malicious link spam crudding up the joint? When the site redesign was launched a while back, the inclusion of the public stream and trending topics seemed like a good way to show potential Twitter initiates ...

Those crazy phishers! Barely a day goes by without some crazy new method of liberating people of their hard-earned cash. Today though, we have a new attack vector: rather than focusing on the old and stupid, this attack targets pirates! This new malware attack, detailed by TorrentFreak, relies on a combination of fear and uncertainty to extort money from file sharers. The malware installs ...

I have no doubt that most of our regular readers would know better than to install a site-specific antivirus app...But unfortunately for the Internet, there are plenty of people who will believe that something called Facebook Antivirus could really offer them protection from malware on the popular social networking site. digg_url = ...

I had gotten some very well-informed and interesting replies when I asked you guys about the stock market, so I figured I would try my luck again with something at least as shady, scammy and rife with get-rich-quick artists: Google AdWords affiliate marketing. The basic idea, to those of you unfamiliar with the concept: Company A offers its product for sale (say, an anti-virus). If I get ...

Since it's introduction last week, people have been clamoring for more information on the iPad. Apple has released a video and has posted some basic specs and pricing, but more information has been hard to come by. Scammers have started to pick up on this and have been looking for ways to exploit users searching for iPad websites. BBCNews reports that handful of security firms have been ...

Over 30,000 email addresses have been compromised, with their login info posted online, in the past few days. The BBC has apparently seen the list, and it includes Hotmail, AOL, Yahoo and Gmail users. None of those companies are to blame, though, because the owners of the email addresses got caught in a phishing scam. In case you're not already in the habit of making sure you're not giving your ...

While it's not news that malware developers are opportunistic, their latest deception isn't at all what I expected. Fake P2P sites? Sure. Fake celeb porn sites? Ok. But bogus presidential news blogs? Trend Micro researchers have discovered a number of sites built using Obama's name and related keywords to ensnare unwary browsers. The sites try to push ActiveX controls and .exe files on visitors ...

Phishers are up to the same old tricks, with a new target: your Twitter password. Several Twitter users received a direct message today that included a Blogspot link purporting to be about "a funny blog about you!" They clicked on it and found themselves redirected to a spoofed Twitter login page that grabs passwords and may use your account to propagate the phishing messages to more users. To ...