14 DAY TRIAL // Security researchers from Finnish antivirus vendor F-Secure warn that survey scammers have targeted Facebook users during Thanksgiving using a variety of successful lures.
The security company has detected several type of spam messages that used the OMG theme to trick users into visiting rogue application pages and participating in deceptive surveys.
One of the scams used the never dying "OMG This Girl Killed Herself After Her DAD Posted THIS Status Update on Her Wall Visit [url]" lure.
We have seen this "suicide over Facebook post" theme being used in similar attacks many times before and there are different variations of it.
In fact, such a variant has also been spotted yesterday. The spam in question read "This Wife killed Herself After her Husband Posted this on her wall! Click here to see what did he post! --> [url]"
Another popular scam lure reused this Thanksgiving was the one about a student taking revenge on his school. The rogue messages were "OMG Look What this Kid did to his School after being Expelled! [url]"
There were also other campaigns using less prominent themes, like "OMG! Her boyfriend dies in her arms right before her eyes. This car hits them while they kiss. It's heartbreaking. You must see this: [url]"
The spammed links take users to rogue Facebook apps which ask for permission to access their profile data and post on their walls.
Of course, agreeing to this will cause users to unknowingly propagate the spam messages to their friends and family members.
The end game of these scams is to convince users to complete surveys which trick them into signing up for premium rate services or other offers.
If you've fallen victim to one of these scams, go to Account > Privacy Settings > Applications and Websites and remove the rogue applications listed there.