An original version of the variety of Face book scams we have seen since the bereavement of Osama bin Laden has emerged. Naked Security reader Sampath send us a tip-off about the newest dissimilarity he had seen of a viral scam that poses as a video of the killing of Osama bin Laden:
OSAMA KILLING REAL VIDEO LEAKED
OMG! Real video of Osama Bin laden being killed. Video leaked by wiki leaks. Watch it before it gets deleted.
A link in the message may, at first look, emerge to point to the YouTube website but in detail points to a similar-looking Indian domain name ending in “.in”. If you make the fault of clicking on the link you are taken to a third-party webpage, which poses as a security confirmation check from YouTube.
Rather why anybody would imagine that typing in the words “real video” is any form of security verification is further than me.
But what’s occurrence here is that when you submit the so-called CAPTCHA text you are without knowing publish the message to your own Face book wall. This spreads the message virally to your Face book friends, and helps spread the scam additional on behalf of the bad guys.
The scammers create their money by tricking you into taking an online survey. They earn charge for each person they manage to complete it, and you might be the sort of person who is tempted to answer the survey in the belief that you’ll get to see a video of the Osama bin Laden being killed.
Keep in mind – the real YouTube would never ask you to complete an online survey before watching a video, and that scams like this are rife across Face book. As long as Face book users keep falling for scams like this, they’ll carry on being a problem.
At the time of script this latest iteration of the Osama bin Laden Face book scam appear to have been eradicated. But I wonder how long before a new variant arises?