Rampant on Facebook: Auto-Like News Feed Spam
March 28th, 2011 at 10:30 am
Another form of Facebook news feed spam has been rampant on Facebook lately, catching ‘innocent’ users off guard as they contribute to the pool of victims. All it takes is just one click.
Facebook Like-Phising has died out, and now another form of spam has emerged to take it’s place — auto-likes. Been observing the news feed lately and have seen an increase in these compared to last time. (auto-like spam occurrences have been reported since June 2010, or maybe even earlier)
Any of these look familiar to you?
How it Works:
- Use an “out-of-this-world, extraordinary, OMG-you-won’t-believe-this” title and thumbnail image for a web page
- Use an auto-like script where users will automatically “like” a page upon visiting or clicking a certain link
- The webpage gets posted on a user’s news feed for their friends to see.
- Say “hi” to more victims
How to not be a victim:
- Avoid clicking on titles of web pages that go: “OH SHIT YOU WON’T HOW THIS HAPPENED” , “Girl Mistakenly Sends SMS About Cherry-Popping to Dad!!!!” , “Is that really her???”
- These auto-like postings usually come with 3 links under it: “Like”, “Comment”, “Share”.
- There’s a 90% probability of spam when the thumbnail shows a barely naked woman or something ‘explosive’
Bear in mind: Sex sells.
