Don’t Take the Hook on Facebook Phishing!

Cyber threats have been around for several years now, but they continue to spring up in new and intimidating ways. The security team at KnowBe4.com has released an alert to social media users to be aware of classic Facebook phishing,

In the latest Facebook-themed phishing attack, there are a number of red flags to take note of.

The potential victim receives an email that looks like it comes from Facebook, starting out by greeting the recipient, saying, “Hi User.” In the body of the message, the sender writes there is an issue with your account that you must log in to resolve. The email has a link for you to click on that will supposedly verify your account, and ends with the line, “This link will expires in 72 hours, We appreciate your attention to this matter.” If the potential victim clicks on the link, then they are taken to a phony-imposter Facebook login page. Any information that you enter on this page is delivered directly to the cyber criminals.

How many red flags did you catch? Remember these following tips:

• Question everything. For example, your name is part of your Facebook profile, so why is the email addressing you as “User”?
• Always notice if there’s sense of urgency. In this example, the email gives only 72 hours to verify your account. Remember, the bad guys rely on impulsive clicks.
• Notice if there are any mistakes in grammar and capitalization. For example, the words “This link will expires in…” should be “This link will expire in…”. Also in that same line, the word “We” is in the middle of a sentence, so this should be lowercase.

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