Sharing the page on Facebook and liking it is all crooks ask

Dec 29, 2014 21:56 GMT  ·  By

The holiday season is the perfect opportunity for cyber crooks to create new traps for unsuspecting users and at the moment they try to lure with the promise of free three-month and 12-month Xbox Live cards.

They have already set up shop at different online locations and promote the scammy pages via social networks, posts on forums, or comments for legitimate news pieces.

Current events may be used for baiting

Sometimes, the incentive in the messages is that the Lizard Squad group of hackers has stolen a bunch of free codes for Xbox Live and has dumped them online.

For all those who are unware of the activity of the hackers, they did not break into Microsoft’s gaming network and did not steal anything, but simply bombarded it with packets from afar in order to prevent users from connecting to the servers and thus disrupt the gaming activity.

However, it appears that these crooks are aware that not everyone knows what really happened and take advantage of this fact.

The page we encountered is still active at freexboxlive[.]ca and the end goal seems to be to trick visitors into completing online surveys in order to get their hands on the alleged free cards.

Take a good look at the page and the graphics it displays

It is the classic scam, where the page has to be liked and shared before the “goods” are provided. A true gamer should spot the deceit a mile away, since the crooks got the favicon wrong and plastered the PlayStation icon instead.

Also, comparing the graphics on the scammy page with the current ones on Microsoft’s store, it is easy to see that the crooks relied on outdated visuals.

A legitimate three-month membership card, available for $24.99 / €20.56, offers the player free games, as well as exclusive discounts. A one-year membership card can be purchased for $59.99 / €49.34 and provides the same benefits.

The cyber crooks understand that most of the users are looking for a way to get their hands on free stuff and this is exactly what they prey on in this case; but all visitors end up with is completing online surveys, each of them putting money in the pockets of the crooks.

We found the fraudulent page in the comments section of a reputable online publication, which has since curated the area. This does not mean that the scammers will stop promoting the page though, as they have plenty of distribution avenues.

The rule of thumb when finding an offer too good to be true is to refrain from jumping head in and check the legitimacy of the source; most of the times this can be easily done by accessing the website of the service vendor for details about the offer.

Fake Xbox Live promo (2 Images)

Fraudulent page claiming to offer free Xbox Live cards
All visitors get is a chance to fill in some online surveys
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