New Facebook Phishing Scam

Posted by Matt Singley on May 14, 2009 under facebook | 5 Comments to Read

Earlier today I received a private message on Facebook from a personal friend of mine asking me to “Check 151.im”.  Knowing her and knowing the type of message, I immediately recognized it as a phishing scheme…that is, an attempt for me to voluntarily hand over personal information to a site that I think is something I regularly use.  Very often phishing schemes involve bank information, but in this case the website in question looks like the login page for Facebook.  Understand that it is not Facebook, it is an attempt to get your username and password!

I logged in with a fake email address and password and was redirected to a “504 Gateway Time-out” error.  I’m sure that some bot somewhere is trying to log into Facebook as I type this, using the false information I provided. It appears that as it is spreading around multiple URLs are being used, all (as of right now) end in “.im”.

It cannot be said enough, but please be careful each and every time you log into a website with your username and password information.  A couple of things to be aware of:

• Look in the address bar at the top.  Usually phishing ploys use names that are at least close to the website they are copying…in this case, the URL was very clearly not Facebook.
• Keep your browser up to date.  I cannot tell you how many problems I have come across because a client is using a browser that is 2, 3 or 4 versions old.  Download the newest version of Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer or whatever it is you choose to surf with.
• Be very cautious about clicking links in email and from social sites like Facebook.  This particular scheme is moving very, very quickly.  Just because it comes from a friend, it does NOT mean that it is a legitimate link.  When I send links to friends I ALWAYS include a personal message so they know it is from me.
• 

  When you get links in Facebook, Twitter, email or any other digital form it's easy enough to look up the information for the site

  Use common sense.  Rarely, if ever, will your bank or any other site contact you and tell you that you need to change your password.  If in doubt, open a browser and go to the site directly, do not click the link.

The site in question is being hosted in Latvia and is registered by a group in Russia, it’s easy enough to look up WhoIs information, although very likely this is false.  But you never know…some criminals are so stupid they would probably register with their own name!

Please share this information with others you know so we can stop this phishing scame before it gets too out of hand today!

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