Twilight scam spreading rapidly on Facebook, Sophos warns

Issued by Me Talk Pretty for Sophos South Africa
Johannesburg, 12 Apr 2011

Sophos is urging Facebook users to be cautious after the discovery of a rapidly spreading scam targeted at fans of the popular "Twilight" teen vampire romance movies.

Scammers are pretending to be linking to a game promoting the upcoming movie: "Twilight Breaking Dawn", starring Ed Cullen and Kristen Stewart. However, by clicking on a "Play Now" link, users are clickjacked into announcing that they "Like" the link, thus spreading it virally across Facebook.

The scam continues with users then being presented with a dialogue box, asking them to grant permission for a third party application to access their Facebook account and post messages, updates and photos to their wall.

"Twilight fans could quite possibly grant permission without thinking. The only problem is that this isn't a legitimate application request, but a rogue application that wants to make money out of users' devotion to the series of novels,” says Brett Myroff, CEO of regional Sophos distributor, Sophos South Africa.

“Predictably, having gained the ability to post to your Facebook account, the scammers then present an online survey that earns them affiliate commission for each person who completes the questionnaire. If Facebook users have been affected by this scam, they should clean up their account before any further damage is done.”

For a video demonstrating how users can clean up their Facebook accounts if hit by this or similar scams, please visit the Sophos Naked Security site:

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/04/11/the-twilight-breaking-dawn-facebook-scam/.

Sophos South Africa

NetXactics, trading as Sophos South Africa, is a South African-based company focused on the provision of security solutions. It is the master distributor for UK-based Sophos, one of the leaders in the provision of network access control and endpoint, e-mail and Web security and control solutions for the corporate environment. For more information, visit Sophos South Africa at www.sophos.co.za.

Sophos

Sophos enables enterprises worldwide to secure and control their IT infrastructure. Its network access control, endpoint, Web and e-mail solutions simplify security to provide integrated defences against malware, spyware, intrusions, unwanted applications, spam, policy abuse, data leakage and compliance drift. With over 20 years of experience, it protects over 100 million users in nearly 150 countries with its reliably engineered security solutions and services. Recognised for its high level of customer satisfaction, it has an enviable history of industry awards, reviews and certifications. Sophos is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts and Oxford, UK.

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