A study released yesterday found that affiliate marketing sites are the final destination for three-quarters of Facebook scams.
by Commtouch Internet Threat Trends ReportAccording to the Internet Threats Year-End Roundup Report, “Fraudulent Facebook Promotion Sites,” visitors to these fraudulent Facebook promotion sites are tricked into completing surveys that will earn affiliation commissions for the scammers, resulting in the victimization of legitimate businesses that pay affiliate commissions.
According to the report, users are lured into clicking on the scams through a variety of social engineering tactics, including offers of free products, celebrity news, new (fake) Facebook applications, or simply messages from trusted friends saying “you should check this out!”
According to the study, after a user initially clicked on the scam, malware or malicious scripts were used to further spread the scams in just over half of the analyzed scams. These exploits fell into three main categories: likejacking, rogue applications, and malware or “self-XSS”.
According to Commtouch, in 48 percent of cases, users themselves unknowingly spread undesirable content by clicking the “like” or “share” button.
“Facebook scammers are looking to make money, and affiliate marketing is a rich source of funding,” Commtouch CTO Amir Lev said in a statement. “The same social engineering techniques that malware distributors and spammers have used for years to get people to open unwanted emails or click on malicious links are now being used to make fraudulent gains on Facebook and other popular social networks.”
The report covers Facebook threats as well as web threats, phishing, malware and spam throughout the year. The report is based on data from Commtouch’s GlobalView Network, which tracks and analyzes billions of internet transactions every day.
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