"Honey, I'm hoooooooooooome!"Social Scams Deep into Family Affairs

 

Some of the juiciest stories that put recent social scam baits on the path to stardom have a family theme: we`ve got mothers, fathers, daughters, babies, (ex)girlfriends/boyfriends”¦..they`re all in it, busy at helping humanity live up to its scandal breeder name. Fairly recent examples of social scams promise their potential public to show them short movies of horrendous domestic (yet savage, come to think of it) interactions:

Exhibit 1: The Incest, a classic by now. Notice the astuteness of the social engineering technique: create a whole scenario, give them something to chew on, not just a cursory account of the whole Electra forcefully meets Oedipus story. It`s a “crazy” brother who not only rapes, but also kills (thank God for upper case!) his little (mind you!) sister. This is the stuff nightmares are made of”¦.so, yeah, it`s horrendous, not just Shocking (as the scam creators kindly warn you). To top it all”¦.there`s the promise of a sequel”¦”see what happened to the girl after”¦” Don`t click? I wonder why”¦..

Exhibit 2: The Rough Love Episode. Just as its predecessor, this scam boasts a heavy dose of emotions (Shocking warning is replaced with Brutal!). Once again, a whole scenario is crammed up into two tiny lines. It`s the guy`s EX girlfriend that went through what`s supposed to be a true ordeal. Soap opera or telenovella aficionados will probably jump at the occasion of building up the sage: why did they break up? why did he/she go back to her/him (this whole line of reasoning in getting crazy here”¦) Suspense reaches incredible heights. But wait! That`s not all”¦ the thumbnail (blurry as it is), combined with the “she was hurting for days, she could not walk!” description add a carnal touch (excuse the involuntary pun) to the whole story. Again, I wonder who, in his/her right mind, would refuse to click this link!

Exhibit 3: The Puritan Renaissance. This one`s a keeper for the scam memorabilia museum. Let`s dive into the troubled waters of this story: a MOTHER engages in excessive social gaming and allegedly ends up killing her own baby so she can indulge in her guilty pleasure. O, you , mothers of the world, stand up in rage (or, rather, sit down calmly on your chair) and watch the exclusive account of this atrocity. So, here I am, the one who would never do that, trying to watch the very thing I would never do”¦.Makes sense, right?

Exhibit 4: “Pero por que, Maria?”, revised and supplemented version. Thick storyline here as well. A love triangle that`s bound to set us all (dreamers and hopeful defenders of the human kind) screaming with excitement. Forgetting the video chat on is plausible, while the cheating part is highly probable. Give me one good reason not to click it.

 

 

How about the fact that these are all scams and that they are bound to plaster your wall with posts about you accessing the respective scandalous content. If you don`t care too much about what the others might think, you might care about what your Facebook account might “think”. After clicking to see any of these videos, you will most probably end up on a page on which your friends (according to the most complex scenarios) or some perfect strangers allegedly testify to the atrocity being real:

Click to see the video again, and then take your pick: a nice quiz maze you get lost in, a piece of Java script to copy and paste into your browser, etc.

Want some sound advice to stay away from scams this summer? Well, just don`t fall prey to curiosity spells and, as always, be cautious what you click.

Bitdefender Safego is there to help you along the way, but don`t forget that common sense is your best friend.

P.S: Here`s my proposal for an official “friends got scammed” T-shirt. Looking forward to receiving your suggestions on how to make it better! J

 

This article is based on the technical information provided courtesy of Tudor Florescu, BitDefender Online Threats Analyst.

All product and company names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and are the property of, and may be trademarks of, their respective owners.