New Threat: Undetectable Facebook Scams

Posted: April 29, 2010

I recently received two Facebook e-mail notifications that set my security spider-sense tingling. Nothing was obviously wrong with the e-mail messages, which said that my friend had tagged a photo of me and then commented on it. But something about a reference to an app named "Who stalks into your profile" just didn't feel right.

By Erik Larkin, PCWorld.com

[caption id="attachment_7414" align="alignright"]© kentoh - Fotolia.com[/caption]I recently received two Facebook e-mail notifications that set my security spider-sense tingling. Nothing was obviously wrong with the e-mail messages, which said that my friend had tagged a photo of me and then commented on it. But something about a reference to an app named "Who stalks into your profile" just didn't feel right.

So I checked it out. I dug into the e-mail header to make sure that it was from Facebook--it was. A search for the app's name didn't turn up any warnings. The app's installation page didn't give me any obvious clues, either. Still, I let my paranoia have its day, and I sat on the app.

Sure enough, it was a scam, and an ingenious one. When anyone installed the supposed stalker app, it first created a photo montage of friends' images and then commented on that montage. Facebook duly sent out "your friend tagged a photo of you" messages, effectively advertising the scam app, which was created to generate illicit online ad revenue.

 

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