Cyber criminals exploit tragic stories

CYBER-CRIMINALS are exploiting tragedies like the attacks in Norway and the death of Amy Winehouse to infect computers and spread spam.

Just hours after the Oslo bomb last Friday, links to video footage claiming to capture the moment of the explosion were posted on Facebook, while during the weekend other links appeared purporting to contain graphic images of troubled Winehouse snorting cocaine shortly before her death, and even pictures of her dead body.

Urban Schrott, a cybercrime analyst with IT security company Eset Ireland, said unsuspecting Facebook account-holders who clicked on the links which appear in their newsfeeds risked exposing their computers to infections.

“The people who create these links have several different goals. They try to infect you with malware (viruses and other damaging software) that can turn your computer into a zombie for sending out spam or they lead you to scam surveys that say ‘just answer these three questions’ and then lead to all sorts of stuff you don’t want to be involved in.”

Surveys like these are designed to glean personal details for use in marketing, hacking and even identity theft, and the nature of Facebook and other social networking sites is that once clicked, the “news” item goes to every person in the individual’s network — potentially hundred of people with every click.

“It’s very clever because it’s the users of Facebook and other social networks who are propagating the scam and usually they don’t even know it or it’s too late to stop it.

“The idea is not new — these scams appear after every major disaster or widely publicised tragedy. The people who create them have no compassion — they are organised criminals. But they are successful because people are curious.”

Regular anti-malware software, which is effective at blocking scam emails, doesn’t work on a massive network such as Facebook so Mr Schrott said the only sure-fire way to avoid trouble was not to click on the links.

“If it claims to be about a big news story, you have to ask yourself is it credible that it would be appearing in my newsfeed from some anonymous guy when it’s not on a reputable newspaper or breaking news site with a clearly identified source.

“It will usually try to have very, very shocking titles too — if it isn’t about a news event then something like ‘spider living in my skin’ which was one running recently.

“If it’s shocking and ‘exclusive’ and you just have to see it, it’s most likely a scam.”