Facebook Hit with Phishing Scam Designed for Stealing Account Credentials

According to security researchers, cyber-criminals are running one new phishing e-mail scam that tries to grab the Facebook credentials of a large number of users, reported softpedia.com dated November 10, 2014.

The phishing e-mail that poses as a formal notification from Facebook tells the recipient that he'll be unable to access his account for sometime.

The message elaborates that the social networking website, in an effort for making sure every Facebook accountholder utilizes his/her true identity, requires the user for following a web-link and performing one security check. It then states that once the security verification is complete the user will get back his account fully operational.

Unsurprisingly, there's use of the usual Facebook logo and the website's color combination of white and blue in the e-mail.

But, neither has Facebook sent the e-mail nor has the recipient's account been made inaccessible as claimed.

Actually, it's one phishing scam whose related e-mail is crafted for filching the users' Facebook login credentials.

Anybody who clicks the web-link followed with typing in his data on the spoofed login web-page will lose his information to cyber-criminals perpetrating the scam. These criminals may subsequently utilize the information for compromising the user's account and this'll be even more possible incase the security program 2FA (dual-factor validation) isn't enabled.

The 2FA works as one supplemental code to substantiate users' login details as well as confirm their identity.

Meanwhile, considering how popular Facebook is, its user accounts are always valuable and this induces cyber-criminals to forever attempt at deceitfully making unwitting end-users to surrender their credentials. For, by compromising any Facebook profile, crooks can utilize it for spreading malevolent schemes.

Moreover, although the current e-mail is fraudulent, security researchers note that an alert message -"A/C temporarily made inaccessible" may get displayed from Facebook incase the company actually requires a user towards confirming his identity alternatively incase the website's security system doubts the user's PC is infected with malware.

Lately, publication of a study about 5 scams, among others, used the maximum number of times against Facebook reveals the worst of those scams as offering certain tool which discloses who the profile viewers are.

» SPAMfighter News - 11/18/2014