5 Ways to Steal Your Money Using Social Media

Social networks have become an integral part of life for many. It is not surprising that attackers take advantage of this addiction of ours and come up with new methods of fraud every year. Here are 5 of the most common schemes used by cybercriminals.

According to a study by the non-profit organization Better Business Buraeu (BBB), users have lost about $ 100 billion from illegal actions on social networks. Some scam schemes are so primitive that they cause confusion, but nevertheless, they work.

Adding to friends

This fraud scheme is extremely simple – you receive a request to add as a friend from a stranger on your social network. You may even have mutual friends with him, which will be an additional factor of trust in your account. You add this user and now attackers have access to your personal data.

Usually there are not many of them, but information about the place of residence, study, work, hobbies, as well as the names of relatives and friends is enough to create a fake page and impersonate you. Now scammers can send messages to your friends asking them to send money. Usually these are very small amounts, so such messages do not raise serious suspicion.

Attackers can also share a malicious link with your friends, clicking on which they will be exposed to a virus attack. Therefore, an information security specialist does not recommend adding strangers as friends, even if they are friends of your acquaintances.

Cases when people are asked to borrow money through social networks are very rare, so such requests should be alarming. If someone from your loved ones received a similar message from you, immediately contact the support service of the social network and send them screenshots of the correspondence.