14 DAY TRIAL // Sophos’ Senior Technology Consultant, Graham Cluley, has discovered a new phishing scam that has the potential to trick Apple fans into signing up for a mobile phone subscription service that charges them £4.50 (around 7 bucks) every week.
According to Cluley, scammers are hoping to catch you off guard with a message allegedly written by Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook CEO) himself.
The fake Zuckerberg promises free iPads and iPhones to randomly selected individuals. If you receive the message reproduced below, beware, says Cluley.
"My name is Mark Zuckerberg, Chief Executive Officer of Facebook. We have recently partnered up with Apple company for a one-time promotional event today, we are giving away free Apple iPhones and iPads to randomly selected individuals who have been fortunate to be picked as one of our newest winners for today. We randomly selected users from our systems database and you have matched with our latest drawing.
We have partnered up with Apple to advertise their most popular product yet, the Apple iPhone and iPad. Once again, we are running this campaign for one-day only. All you need to do is CLICK HERE to check out our web site made for this promotion and fill out this short survey to get yours for free. Simply make sure you enter your email so we may locate our records to guarantee that we have reserved one for you. That is it!"
The link you’re supposed to click on takes you to a web page where there’s an online competition claiming that you are the "potential winner" of an Apple smartphone.
At first glance, it appears that all you need to do is answer a simple question with Yes or No and get the chance to win an iPhone 4S.
But the fine print states that participants are actually signing up for a mobile phone subscription service. The fee is £4.50 a week, and you don’t want that.
Cluley explains: “The motivation of the spam message claiming to come from Mark Zuckerberg, is to drive traffic to online competitions and surveys like this - the spammers will earn affiliate commission every time they trick someone into signing up.”
The best way to protect yourself from these scams is simply to avoid them altogether. When an offer sounds too good to be true, it’s most likely a scam.