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06/10/11

Cybercriminals Remember Steve Jobs Through Facebook Scam

In an inevitable turn of events, cybercriminals were found leveraging the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs through Facebook scams within hours after it was announced.

The particular scam we found involves a website which claims that Apple has decided to give away 1000 iPads, in memory of Steve Jobs. The said site displays the following:

The site asks users to share the page in order to be eligible. After the user follows the instructions, he is directed to an ad site, while in the background, the link is posted on their Facebook wall.


And as dubious as the offer sounds, it seems like some users are falling for the scheme, as we are seeing an increasing number of posts bearing the website’s URL.

The catch behind this scam is that there is no such offer from Apple, and that only ones who will get anything from this are the scammers, who will earn money from the displayed ads every time a user is tricked into following the instructions. Also, as more users share the link, the number of potential victims also increases, as well as the profit for the scammers behind it.

The death of known persons have become staple topics of social engineering schemes for the past years. Just a couple of months ago we saw scams that took advantage of the death of singer Amy Winehouse, as well as rumors about the death of Lady Gaga.

Users are advised not to click on posts like these if they see them on their Facebook newsfeeds. We also suggest users to educate those who have been tricked to stop the spreading of such scams.

For more information on threats leveraging social networking sites, check our infographic, The Geography of Social Media Threats.

Access to the mentioned website is now blocked through the Web Reputation Service. Users of the latest Trend Micro™ Titanium™ Maximum Security are also protected from this through the Social Networking Security feature.

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