Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Cybercrime

Cyber Criminals Latch On To Facebook IPO

Unless you were hiding under a rock, you know that Facebook made its debut as a public company on Friday, listing on the NASDAQ and closing the day valued at approximately $104 billion. Following the historic IPO, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg got married in a surprise wedding that took place just a day after. So for the world’s largest social network, there is plenty to talk about this week, which means that enterprising criminals may want a piece of the action.

Unless you were hiding under a rock, you know that Facebook made its debut as a public company on Friday, listing on the NASDAQ and closing the day valued at approximately $104 billion. Following the historic IPO, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg got married in a surprise wedding that took place just a day after. So for the world’s largest social network, there is plenty to talk about this week, which means that enterprising criminals may want a piece of the action.

Last week, scammers started things off with Pre-IPO offers via email. The scams, which mirrored the 419 variety entirely, offered investors soft money in order to purchase Facebook stock. Once the stock was purchased, the “firm” would buy it back from the victim at a slightly higher price. The catch was that the victim needed to send various items of information in order to get the initial stipend of cash to purchase the stock.

It’s likely that this scam will continue, with slight wording changes and some alterations to the scope, such as a play on the initial reactions to Friday’s first day of trading, in order to lure people into the scam. “As usual, when receiving any kind of financial offer, exercise extreme caution. Use companies registered with the appropriate regulatory bodies for your jurisdiction, and if in doubt, don’t hand over any of your money,” Symantec warns.

Another way criminals may get into the Facebook cycle is by spreading links. Often these spammy messages lead to surveys and other junk offers. However, given the hype of the Facebook IPO and the wedding that followed, it’s highly likely that spammy or outright malicious links will flood Facebook.

It’s highly likely that the wedding will be targeted by scammers using BlackHat SEO scripts in order to promote malicious domains to the top of popular searches, including searchers related to Zuckerberg’s wedding. In the past, such tactics have been used to spread malware and Rogue anti-virus applications. So for those looking to dig up photos or videos from Mark Zuckerberg’s private wedding, be cautious. Any site claiming to have that rare, exclusive video, is likely to be trying to serve you up more than entertainment. 

No matter what the case may be, cyber criminals will most certainly latch on to the attention that Facebook is earning and use it for their own nefarious gain. With that said, use caution when searching for Facebook related news, and avoid following random links that come from nowhere on your Timeline or inbox.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.
Written By

Click to comment

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

SecurityWeek’s Threat Detection and Incident Response Summit brings together security practitioners from around the world to share war stories on breaches, APT attacks and threat intelligence.

Register

Securityweek’s CISO Forum will address issues and challenges that are top of mind for today’s security leaders and what the future looks like as chief defenders of the enterprise.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Cybercrime

The changing nature of what we still generally call ransomware will continue through 2023, driven by three primary conditions.

Cybercrime

Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus Group informed some customers last week that their online accounts had been breached by hackers.

Cybercrime

As it evolves, web3 will contain and increase all the security issues of web2 – and perhaps add a few more.

Cybercrime

A recently disclosed vBulletin vulnerability, which had a zero-day status for roughly two days last week, was exploited in a hacker attack targeting the...

Cybercrime

Satellite TV giant Dish Network confirmed that a recent outage was the result of a cyberattack and admitted that data was stolen.

Cybercrime

Zendesk is informing customers about a data breach that started with an SMS phishing campaign targeting the company’s employees.

Artificial Intelligence

The release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022 has demonstrated the potential of AI for both good and bad.

Artificial Intelligence

The degree of danger that may be introduced when adversaries start to use AI as an effective weapon of attack rather than a tool...