Security

Facebook Woman Loses Money in Online Fraud

Scam conducted through social networking service

By Bogdan Popa, Security and Search Engines Editor

12th of December 2007, 13:27 GMT

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Following the recent attacks involving social networking service, a new scam, which appears to be a threat for all of us, was reported by "The Local". According to this

source, the Swedish woman was tricked to provide her financial details, which were then used by the attackers to steal her money. The entire operation was conducted through the popular social network Facebook, which has millions of registered users all over the world. Here's how they did it:

First of all, some attackers, who appear to be from the United States, managed to get access to a friend's profile and informed her about a new lottery with exciting prizes. "It was an schoolmate I'd been in contact with. He wrote to me about an American lottery", the woman told Sydsvenskan, according to "The Local".

Being attracted by the prizes, she registered for the lottery and she was soon contacted by the attackers. During the phone call, she was requested to provide the bank account information, in order to pay some costs of the trip to Florida that she had just won, the same source mentioned above continued. By the time she discovered the scam and contacted the bank to block access to her account, the attackers had already managed to steal $1,000.

Certainly, this is a new threat for all of us, because such attacks can be launched every day all around the world. The only problem is that the software installed on users' computers have no fault in this scam. It's all up to consumers' naivety, who always agree to provide their financial information to unknown persons. Sure, this can be stopped, but the software companies can't do anything about it. Just stop being naive and trust me, nobody who ever wants to give you a trip to Hawaii will request you the bank account credentials.

TAGS:

facebook | security | scam | money | fraud

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