I’ve been seeing a huge uptick in friends and family on Facebook doing the copy and paste captions. Each one claims to ”protect them from hackers” or “stop” X/Y/Z from taking their money or protecting your privacy.
The irony of these, is that a lot of these (and most I see on here) are actually scammers and hoaxers tracking you to hack your identity/account, take your money and destroy your privacy. (Ironic right?)
I also have seen a huge uptick in my Facebook friends and family complaining about getting hacked.
Reasons these people have you “copy and paste” is simply because...
1. Re shares allows hoaxers to get caught faster by Meta.
2. Copy and pasting, especially when they ask you to personalize your own statement at the end, makes it even harder for meta to find them.
3. Re-shares can be hidden by privacy settings, while new posts are likely to be seen by more new people.
4. Copy and sharing allows the origin of the post to keep anonymity. In fact, once it starts (dare I say like a plague), they’ll even delete the original one.
How does the hacker or hoaxer or scammer track you through the copy and paste?
Often times there is a unique word or a misspelled word or even a phrase that often says something like, “like, comments, copy and paste - Amen.”
A quick Facebook search will simply curate the list of those who have posted the message. This allows them to try either “Friend” you on Facebook or to start looking at your account to make a lookalike account.
And while we’re on it, what about those chain style, ”tell me more about yourself!”
You tell us your..
FAVORITE NUMBER
FAVORITE COLOR
HOME TOWN GROWING UP
YOUR MOMS MAIDEN NAME
FIRST PETS NAME
Please tell me this looks familiar??
I know you’ve all answered SECURITY QUESTIONS at the bank or for your phone or for your credit card.
Some people MAY have honorable intentions, but you won’t know until it’s too late. Knowing these are the most common ways for hacking, hoaxing and scamming on socials - please think TWICE & THRICE before copying and pasting or forwarding a chain message.
Whatever you do, don’t click links that look even remotely suspicious in your messenger inbox. In fast, just ask your friend to text it to you. If they don’t have your number? Don’t send it. It’s not important anyway.
MORE STATS?
Imposter scams were the highest form of scams in American in 2017, accounting for more than $328 million dollars according to the US FTC. Collection scams, identity theft and imposter scams were the top 3.
Sources:
https://scambusters.org/copyandpaste.html
https://www.inc.com/.../why-do-facebook-hoaxes-often-ask...
https://www.forbes.com/.../persona.../facebook-scams-survey/