A new phishing fraud is a frenzy on Facebook
Tampa, FL - A new phishing fraud is a frenzy on Facebook.
Thousands of folks have fallen victim to an old scam with a new twist.
"This is the very first time I've seen it but I'm not surprised," said Andrew Cohen, the CEO of Vertical IT Solutions in Tampa.
Cohen was an intended target himself. He got an email from what he thought was Facebook. It asked him to "reset his password" by clicking on an attachment. But being an internet security expert, Cohen knew better.
"No organization can send you an email requesting you to change your password. No organization does that," said Cohen.
He says that is a policy that was put in place after the Bank of America phishing scam that hit thousands of Americans last year. That scam was a more direct route to get to people's personal information, like passwords, account information and ultimately your money. This Facebook scam is a more roundabout route but still effective, since most people tend to use the same password for everything.
"Spoofing Facebook and having them capture that confidential information, I mean, it is ingenious," said Cohen.
For protection purposes, Cohen suggests people get anti-virus and spyware programs. That way, email scams go straight to your spam folder.
The companies can help protect you too. For instance, Facebook has it's own security page. There, you can get warnings straight from the source. In fact, a status update refers directly to this recent phishing scam, where Facebook warns the "email is fake, delete it and warn your friends."
"As you join a new group, understand what their security policy is, what emails they will or will not send you will be the surefire way to protect yourself in the future," said Cohen.
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