The World Wide Web has brought people closer than ever, with the evolving social media platforms playing a vital role in all of our lives. It’s safe to say that, social media platforms are now a very critical part of our lives and it helps us a great deal in building networks with people. Unfortunately, cybercriminals are leveraging platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to steal login credentials and other personal data of individuals.
Cybercrime on Facebook
- Executives of well-known brands are impersonated on Facebook according to researchers for the purpose of stealing credentials and damaging the companies’ reputation.
- Another Facebook scam involves tricking users into believing that they have been spotted in an x-rated video shared on Facebook Messenger. By redirecting innocent users to a fake Facebook login page, this malevolent fake video is actually used to compromise their accounts.
- Facebook’s automated notifications are also impersonated by attackers. They send emails to administrators of certain pages on Facebook claiming to unpublish their page after receiving numerous complaints against it. In case of an error, to appeal against the decision the user is asked to provide correct information on a link given in the email.
Attacks executed on other social media platforms –
- Impersonating top executives is popular across Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram to promote a fake giveaway scam or contest.
- To impersonate a high-rank executive to conduct fake job recruitments or offer individuals fake goods and services, Linkedin is used since a lot of aspirants opt to use this platform for their job hunt. In such a scenario, threat actors send private messages to targets from the compromised accounts and ask for their sensitive information like Government-issued identification number or money.
- A case of a cyber espionage campaign leveraging the LinkedIn platform to conduct BEC attacks against European Aerospace and military companies in Europe and the Middle East was also discovered by researchers.
- Platforms like Twitter and Instagram are being used to create a sense of urgency among users by claiming that their accounts will be suspended for violating rules. Social engineering techniques, along with phishing emails are being used to redirect innocent users to fake login pages of these social networks.
Social Media platforms have also become the latest channels to leak and sell compromised data. With the help of this data available to various threat actors, they can conduct identity theft, blackmail victims, or make fraudulent purchases.
Our experts believe that due to the popularity among users across the world various social media platforms will continue to see the rise in cyberattacks.
Consequently, they advise the users to –
- Be careful and vigilant when receiving emails from unverified sources.
- Never download or open attachments coming from unknown sources.
- It is critical to understand that social media websites never typically issue any email, threatening to suspend or terminate their services. Any such emails must be treated with extreme caution and must be verified before taking any actions.
