Jul 18, 2011 20:16 GMT  ·  By

Facebook scammers continue to make use of a new trick that involves using foreign language dialogs in order to confuse users and increase the success rate of their campaigns.

A new scam spotted by security researchers from antivirus vendor Sophos lures users with the promise of an intriguing video.

"This girl must be Out of her Mind to do this on live Television! Watch the embarrassing moment of her," spam messages sent by the scam's victims read.

Clicking on the advertised link takes users to a page showing them a Facebook-like dialog box asking "Are you older than 18 years of age? Choose an option below. Click 'Jaa' twice to play."

This first window has the purpose of training the user to click on "Jaa" which means "share" in Finnish, but also "yes" in informal English.

The second window is a real Facebook share dialog intentionally displayed in Finnish to confuse users about its true purpose. Clicking on "Jaa" for the second time here will cause the spam message to be shared from people's accounts, further propagating the scam.

"When I tested the scam on my computer I was taken a to a website that was clearly pretending to be YouTube, but - presumably to avoid getting itself into trouble with lawyers - used a 'YonTube' logo instead.

"The page says that you need to take an 'age verification' test before viewing the video. In fact, it's a survey or online prize draw - the scammers earn commission the more they trick into taking the survey," says Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at Sophos.

People who have fallen victims to this scam or others like it are strongly encouraged to remove the spam messages from their walls in order to protect their friends. They should also unlike any rogue pages by editing their profile settings, going to "Activities and Interests > Show other pages" and removing them from the list.