BBB provides information obtained from Help Net Security and Sophos to stop consumers from becoming victims of scams from those who would want to profit from recent tragedies.
In light of the bombing and shootings in Norway, it’s hard to believe that scammers would take advantage of such a tragic situation. But that’s just what’s happening on Facebook today, where a bogus post claims to link you to a video from an Oslo security camera showing the detonation of a car bomb near a Norwegian government building in which at least 10 people were killed.
The truth is, there was no security camera that captured such a video, at least as far as we know thus far. So if you see the following message on Facebook “[Video] OSLO Security Camera Captures Blast!,” don’t click on it, delete it from your Facebook feed, and report it to Facebook security. Help Net Security says the scam is infecting one user per second.
Facebook users have predictably been targeted with various scams. First came the ones exploiting the Oslo bombing news, and then followed those luring victims in with non-existent videos of the last moments of the famous and recently deceased singer Amy Winehouse.
According to Sophos, variations of "Leaked Video!! Amy Winehouse On Crack hours before death," "Video leaked of Amy Winehouse's death!!! Warning: Graphical Content" and "SHOCKING - Amy Winehouse's Final Minutes" messages offering a link to the purported video unsurprisingly take users to pages where they are asked to like the page and to take a survey before being allowed to see it.
Scammers are like vultures, feeding off tragedies such as the death of Amy Winehouse or the horrific events in Norway. Scams like this normally lead you to online surveys, with the scammers earning themselves commission for each survey that victims complete. But first they trick you into sharing the link with your other Facebook friends.
If you are one of the people who fell for this type of scam, be sure to remove any trace of it from your account ("Likes and interests" section, for example) and news feed, and to report the scam to Facebook.
Also remember that when it comes to unexpected and often shocking global news, legitimate news sites are always a better source of information than your Facebook friends.
Even when it seems that the offered link is the URL of a legitimate site, it might be better to go to that site by typing in the domain name in and then using the internal search feature in order to find the wanted news item.
