Hoang Giang in HCM City on December 1 posted an entry on his Facebook warning his friends of being tagged on articles with distressing content.

Tagged people may have their Facebook accounts hacked if they enter log-in information on the pages shown by scammers.

In the case of Giang, scammers showed a link to a VietNamNet article about a traffic accident.

“Q. oi sao Q ra di dot ngot nhu vay, ai quen Q thi den tham Q…” (Q, why did you leave the world so suddenly? Q’s friends, please come see him…), the post on social network reads, calling on people to share the post to share condolences with Q’s family.

The owner of the post tagged Hoang Giang and 100 other people.

If someone clicked on the post on traffic accidents, it would not lead to the original article, but to an interface which looks like a Facebook log-in page. It would have the words ‘noi dung nguoi lon. Ban can dang nhap de xac minh’ (this content is for adults only. You need to log in for verification).

This is not the Facebook’s log-in page, and if users enter information and passwords of their accounts, their information will be stolen.

After Giang’s post, many other people said that they had been tagged to similar posts.

VietNamNet reporters have also been tagged on posts with distressing content and the links show that the articles are from Tuoi Tre and Kenh14, a well known newspaper and a news website, respectively.

After the reporters clicked on a link, they saw an interface with the design as described by Giang.

Scammers have been using a lot of tricks to steal information. They send content to comment columns of some groups, such as a video clip with ‘sensitive content’ to entice users to click on it.

But instead of video clips as expected, users see an interface with a request to declare information so they can watch the ‘sensitive’ content.

Facebook accounts, after being stolen, arecused by scammers for many purposes. They chat with friends and relatives of the original holders, ask them to transfer money into their accounts, citing emergency cases. A lot of people have been cheated this way.

Analysts say the common characteristic of the trick used recently by scammers is that they show counterfeited links to prestigious newspapers to make users feel secure and do what they tell them to do.

Security firms’ reports all show that Vietnam is among the leading countries in the world in the number of phishing websites. 

Phuong Nguyen

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