Recently we have been seeing “ads” about Facebook Messenger’s “new update”. The “update” lets you know who viewed your profile recently as well as, in some scams we have seen, change how your messenger looks.
This is what the fake ads look like, along with the link to which they are trying to send you to, and “download” the “new update”
Don’t fall for it, this is a trick so that they will steal your data and use it for malicious purposes, or shortly, this may get your account in huge trouble. Websites like these masquerade the actual website they are targeting, in this case, FB Messenger. However there are websites that do far worse, such as masquerading a bank’s homepage and login screens. Although it looks convincing, they all have one flaw that lets you know it’s a huge red flag.
Check the font, the typeface and spellings. There maybe different spellings in the actual website. Also, that one flaw we are talking about is the one seen below:
As you can see, the fake website has a different URL. It leads to GitHub, instead of messenger.com. GitHub is a place where you can share your programming code in, meaning, wherever the fake messenger is coded in, it was shared through github. Also, the fake URL leads to a different path, whereas the actual one simply reads “login”
In order to test the fake website out, we used a fake email that redirects to nowhere, and a fake password. Upon entering, we were redirected yet again to a different website, but also, we got this warning:
The fake email and password is now in the hands of the hackers, but fret not. These information we typed are fake. Meaning it won’t harm us in any way. You can continue to the site flagged unsafe, however, we don’t recommend it. It already looks shady from the start
If you somehow became a victim. Change your password immediately. Tell your friends and family member, or anyone you know that your data has been compromised. Always check the URL, the spellings, the wordings, before clicking that link. If it looks too good to be true, then it most probably is.
If you see fake ads shown above, then best thing to do is report it as misleading or scam, because that’s what it is.
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