Argentinean Politics Set Social Malware Boots Walking

Remember the laughing baby social scam trend? Not so long ago, we warned you about a likejacking scheme that used as bait a laughing baby video that appeared to have struck the funny bone of the entire world.

 

As pointed out back then, the success of the scam was mostly due to the existence of a real, harmless short movie with an actual baby that had a distinctive (and quite contagious) laugh. That video went viral on the net, and we had figures to prove it:

 

As history repeats and the huge impact of social content sharing is literally shrinking the world, we”re witnessing the rise of another baby-themed viral video apparently connected to Argentina”s topic of the day: Cristina Kirchner”s election.

 

While this is not a case of likejacking (the video exists and is actually super funny), one cannot help notice its resemblance to the “baby-laughing” scenario. We”ve got two excellent pieces of potential scam material: highly emotional visual content and the name of a public figure making headlines these days. Therefore, watch out what you click and check your account for any suspicious activity after accessing similar video content.

Though the cute baby scam is just a (pretty wild) guess we”re making here, here”s a real example of how scammers have already found a way to exploit the Argentinean election buzz:

 

As Cristina Fernandez supporters and detractors engage in heated debates these days, it was only a matter of time before someone decided to create pages on which discussions about the newly elected First Lady would take place. Once the discussion pages” audience is built, it takes something as simple as a fake, spam spreading account to place unwanted content on it. In this case, more than 12,000 people who were looking for a debate arena get hit by a social scam wave (as illustrated below). This is the all-too familiar “work from home” trick, which wastes victims” time, at best, and cleans out their bank accounts, at worst.

 

What to do then? Don”t be too generous with your LIKES, check whether the pages you subscribe to are moderated (any spam messages?) and if they”re not, do check your own profile for suspicious posts originating from liked pages. Caution is the word of the day.

Don”t forget that you can also protect your account by installing the Bitdefender Safego free app designed to provide anti-scam protection for you and your friends.

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