In an ongoing fight against spammers and scammers, Facebook and Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna announced that have filed dual lawsuits against the co-owners of Adscend Media LLC, an ad network, which Facebook says is known to support “clickjacking” schemes, and other forms of tricking users into giving up personally identifiable information or money.
“We don’t ‘like’ schemes that illegally trick Facebook users into giving up personal information or paying for unwanted subscription services through spam,” McKenna said during a news conference at Facebook’s Seattle Office announcing his lawsuit. “We applaud Facebook for devoting significant technical and legal resources to finding and stopping scams as soon as possible – and often before they even start. We’re proud to join forces in order to protect Washington consumers.”
Clickjacking involves certain malicious websites contain code that can make your browser take action without your knowledge or consent, say, clicking on a link on one of these websites might cause the website to be posted to your Facebook profile (timeline). Never click strange links, even if they are from friends. Also be sure to notify the person sending the link if you see something suspicious.
Scammers design Facebook Pages to look like they will offer visitors an opportunity to view salacious or provocative content. They condition viewing this content on completing a series of steps that are designed to lure Facebook users into eventually visiting websites that often deceive them into surrendering their personal information or signing up for expensive mobile subscription services. Likejacking takes advantage of vulnerability in the browser that permits malicious actors to make the ‘Like’ button invisible. Once the ‘Like’ button is made invisible, scammers can overlay pictures and other content, to trick the user to click on the invisible ‘Like’ button.
Assistant Attorney General Paula Selis explained in the statement that money from Adscend Media “lined the pockets” of these scammers with up to $1.2 million a month. Facebook urges its users to always remain vigilant, trust their instincts and immediately report scams and spam.
(Image Source: Facebook, Featured Image)
