14 DAY TRIAL // All sorts of bogus posts promising outrageous videos have been circulating on Facebook over the past period, trying to lure users to survey scams. This appears to be a very aggressive campaign because experts have identified another variant.
Users are lured to a shady site with posts that promise a shocking video of a hungry bear tearing a woman into pieces.
“Shocking Video: Hungry bear tear women into pieces in few seconds. Peoples didnot saved her instead of filming the footage,” the posts read.
To make everything more legitimate-looking, a picture of a polar bear apparently attacking a woman accompanies the posts. However, as Malwarebytes experts highlight, the image is taken from a 2009 incident that occurred at a zoo in Berlin. The woman survived, so there’s no video of the bear tearing her into pieces.
Users who click on the links contained in the posts are taken to a fake Facebook page where they’re instructed to complete some surveys in order to gain access to the content. In the end, internauts are shown a video, but it has nothing to do with bears.
Depending on their locations, users can be tricked into handing over information, sign up for all sorts of shady services and install potentially unwanted applications. The scammers can make a lot of money via affiliate marketing programs.
So if you come across such posts, simply ignore them. In case you’ve already installed any applications, shared posts on your timeline, or subscribed to suspicious services, take the appropriate steps: uninstall, delete and unsubscribe.
“As with all of these supposedly viral videos offering up ‘shocking’ or salacious footage on Facebook, the best thing to do is let your friend know they’re posting content that they shouldn’t be and avoid getting suckered into the scam yourself,” Malwarebytes’ Chris Boyd recommends.