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July 2nd, 2010, 07:39 GMT · By

Facebook Scam Lures Users with Zynga Special Gifts

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Zynga Special Gifts money prize is a scam
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A new scam circulating on Facebook is tricking users into disclosing their email credentials by falsely claiming they won a special gift from Zynga. Facebook's attempt to block the offending page has partially failed.

Christopher Boyd, a security researcher from antivirus vendor Sunbelt Software, warns that some Facebook users might end up on a page claiming that they've won a large sum of money as part of a Zynga campaign. Zynga is a company developing some of the top Facebook applications, including FarmVille, the most popular game on the social networking platform.

The rogue page masquerades a legit private basic information access request from a legit application called Texas HoldEm Poker. A window modal reading "Welcome to Winner's Circle. You just won $200,000,000 from Zynga Special Gifts" pops up and is brought into focus via a dimming effect applied to the original page.

The pop-up can be very convincing, especially to the large number of users who play Zygna's games, where announcements and alerts are displayed in a similar fashion. Clicking on a big checkmark button, for claiming the prize, changes the content of the window with a form asking for the email address, password, password and a code.

"Please complete your account data. As proof you are the legitimate Winners!," attached instructions read. "I’ve no idea what the Code is all about, but entering your data into the box and hitting the 'Claim Gifts' button sends your login to the phisher," the Sunbelt security researcher, notes.

Scam pop-up covering Facebook phishing warning
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It seems that Facebook already detected this scam and tries to warn users about it, but only with limited success. Accessing the original page now should present users with a password reset form, which reads "The website that directed you here was not a Facebook page. If you entered your Facebook information on the previous site, you will need to reset your password."

As Christopher Boyd points out the window with the prize claim still pops up, partially covering Facebook's warning. This means that users will see the instructions to change their password only after they've already been phished, and only if they pay enough attention.

You can follow the editor on Twitter @lconstantin

UPDATE:
Corrected an error where Mr. Christopher Boyd was unintentionally presented as a security researcher at Sophos instead of Sunbelt Software.

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READER COMMENTS:


Comment #1 by: Lloyd Bledsoe on 14 Jul 2010, 18:46 UTC reply to this comment

I received an e-mail saying that I won $300,000,000 in chips and gold 75 gold tokens. I think it would be a good idea to send to every member that is register to Face Book your scam alert and site address. I also thing you should do this once every 30 day and to all new member the day they register.
I will send you a copy of the e-mail.
Lloyd

Comment #1.1 by: archie on 22 May 2011, 10:20 GMT

Yes, got a similar message that I assumed was a scam; would be helpful if one could just report such messages & Zynga could handle the rest.

Hadn't heard about the scams before getting this message, but perhaps I opted out somewhere?

Comment #1.2 by: carla on 10 Jun 2011, 03:58 GMT

I got the same that i won 350,000,000 175 gold..I want to know if Zynga do give bonus wins!!


Comment #2 by: Cloudy on 30 Oct 2010, 23:17 UTC reply to this comment

I added a game bar and before that i added some petcash and after that i added the game bar every 8 hours you get more petcash and it took it off the credit card that i was useing


Comment #3 by: Barbara on 14 Oct 2011, 17:48 UTC reply to this comment

FaceBook has yet another scam out there! This one is stateing it is a promo for facebook.Then you get in and they state that you have won a large sum of money and then they wont you to send them yourpersonal info!They have the 1st. person[Jordan Stella] and then when you go to send them your info it goes to yet another pong lee at Ponglee161gmail.com


Comment #4 by: dh on 04 Jan 2012, 00:23 UTC reply to this comment

Zynga constantly causes my computer to freeze when I have good hands. I then lose my chipos and they notify me to buy some more!

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