Thursday, April 7, 2011

Over a million facebook users sign up for bogus event



An event on Facebook called "Who blocked you from his friend list?" has seen 165,000 users signing. A whopping 10 million users are still mulling over whether they should attend. The only catch here is that there is no such even. 
IT security and data protection firm Sophos has issued a warning for Facebook users, asking them to careful while signing up for the event and other bogus events like it.
“Spammers have invited millions of Facebook users to fake events in an attempt to generate income from online survey scams. The scammers embed instructions into the 'More info' section of the event's summary, which leads unsuspecting Facebook users into visiting webpage's for online surveys or competitions, designed to earn commission for those behind the scheme. In some instances, users are also asked for a mobile phone number - which is then signed up to an expensive premium rate service,” says a press note released by Sophos on Friday.
"These spammed-out event invitations and links to survey scams are one of the biggest nuisances on Facebook right now, impacting millions of users every day," said Graham Cluley, Senior Technology Consultant at Sophos. "It would be great if Facebook was being more proactive in shutting down these obviously bogus events, as currently it's far too easy for the scammers to fill their pockets through schemes like this."
Facebook users are reminded never to accept unsolicited invitations from suspicious events, and always think twice about clicking on links received via Facebook. But still many click on links posted on their walls and end up sending similar links or embarrassing wall posts to all on their friend list.