Facebook Hoax Alert: Apparently, People Are Still Falling for the ‘See Who Viewed Your Profile’ Scam

Guys, we need to talk. It appears that people still think that there’s some way to see who has viewed their Facebook profiles. Scammers keep designing bogus apps to capitalize on this belief, an...
Facebook Hoax Alert: Apparently, People Are Still Falling for the ‘See Who Viewed Your Profile’ Scam
Written by Josh Wolford
  • Guys, we need to talk.

    It appears that people still think that there’s some way to see who has viewed their Facebook profiles. Scammers keep designing bogus apps to capitalize on this belief, and there’s a new one in town according to security firm Symantec.

    Here’s what Symantec found:

    The phishing site boasted that the application would enable users to view a list of people who visited their profile page. The site offered two options to activate the fake app. The first option was by downloading software containing the malware and the second was by entering user credentials and logging into Facebook. A message on the phishing page encouraged users to download the software that would allegedly send notifications to the user when someone visited their Facebook profile. If the download button was clicked, a file download prompt appeared. The file contained malicious content detected by Symantec as Infostealer. On the other hand, if user credentials were entered, the phishing site redirected to a legitimate Facebook page.

    And if you give up your personal details like passwords to phishers, well, you know what happens next. It’s a headache to say the least.

    Listen, there are a handful of classic Facebook scams that have been going around forever. Let’s just call it the Facebook hoax Hall of Fame. There’s the whole “dislike” button thing, the whole “share this or Facebook is going to charge you” thing, and then there’s this.

    Facebook is never going to let you browse a list of people who’ve viewed your profile. I mean, who do you think they are, LinkedIn? If they ever did, stalkers would stop using the service and without the stalker base, well, Facebook would probably be forced to pack it up.

    Image via Symantec Blog

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