As you probably know by now, hackers and scammers just love Facebook, and it seems like a new scam starts making the rounds every day.
Well, the latest scam has been going around for a couple of months now. It arrives in your Facebook Message inbox after being sent via an IM that appears to have been sent from a friend. Read on to learn how the scam works…
In a nutshell, the message offers to let you use an app to hack into your other friends’ accounts. If you succumb to temptation and click the link, you will be taken to a fake Facebook login page where you are prompted to enter your Facebook username and password.
Long story short, the only hacking that ends up taking place is the scammer gaining access to YOUR Facebook account by capturing your Facebook login info when you enter it on the fake login page.
Once the hacker has your login credentials, he will log into your Facebook account and send the same message you received earlier to all of your friends. And of course he can also do pretty much anything else he wants to do with your account since you have effectively given him full access to it.
Bottom line: Never click a link that you receive in an instant message unless you know for a fact that it is legit. And don’t send an instant message to your friend asking if the link is legit. The “YES” answer you receive could well be from the hacker himself.
If you haven’t done so already, I recommend that you read this post that explains how to protect your Facebook account from hackers.