Twitter users are receiving direct messages that state: 'I make money online with google. i learned how here [link].' Clicking on the link will take you to a phishing site that appears to be a genuine site requesting your username and password.
Similarly, Facebook users receive status updates stating, ‘I just made $124 in a day! Check out [link] to see for yourself. It’s real’. Or they get a message stating ‘just take a look at it and read it over and try it if you want [link].’ The relevant links, you may have guessed, leads to sites hosting malware. Save your Facebook account and change your password if your account seems to be generating these messaged.
There are also spamming attacks on Facebook. One of them has been resolved after a high-profile lawsuit against Sanford Wallace, the spam-king.
What was the crime?
Sanford, also known as, ‘Spamford ’ sent out thousands of ‘false and misleading’ marketing e-mails to FB users, as a result, compromising the accounts of many of them through phishing sites.
What was the punishment?
Sanford owes FB $711 million in damaged, and will certainly be upset that he won’t be allowed to make a FB account or access the website in the future.
Bummer!
This isn’t the first time he’s taken advantage of this crime:
- In the 1990s, he was part of a firm that sent out 30 million junk e-mails a day (you have to admire the sheer size of that number)
- Three years ago, his company, Smartbot.net, was ordered to pay $4.1 million to the state
- Last year, he was ordered to pay $234 million to MySpace, along with another defendant, for the same reason.
This post was derived mainly from articles by ZDNet and CNet, which can be found here and here.The Image was taken from here.
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