5 Viral Facebook Scams of 2011

When asked about a platform that connects millions of people, globally the unanimous answer was - Facebook. This doesn't mean that Twitter, LinkedIn and likewise go unnoticed, but Facebook has emerged as a more social friendly platform that opens up to vivid interests of people, like gaming, business, music, photography or for simply staying in touch. Obviously, having millions of people, all under one roof would make a pretty appetizing feast for malicious cyber criminals to prey on. For instance, we often want what’s not accessible to us and this was clearly proved by Facebook scammers last year, who went on a spree, posting intriguing updates like ‘Now you can see who viewed your profile’ or a fake Dislike button. A large number of Facebookers fell for these scams, while the truth is that presently, Facebook does not support any of these functions and there aren't any third party apps that will comply, either.

This year we saw another set of malicious tricks that emerged with the intention to allure unsuspecting users. Let’s have a quick look at the scams that hit the social circuit like a viral and obviously, not one of the good variety, as we race through the end of 2011.

R.I.P Steve Jobs
October 5, 2011 marked the death of Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple and a charismatic pioneer who revolutionized technology. While many were grieving the demise of this creative genius, some malicious minds decided to cash in on this tragedy within hours. Scammers used freebies to attract users with posts like ‘In Memory of Steve Jobs, Apple has decided to give away 1000 Limited Edition iPad 2s’, ‘In the memory of Steve Jobs, a company is giving 50 iPads tonite’ . Different variations of these posts started emerging quickly, too. Who wouldnt want to own an iPad, especially when it's free. Unfortunately, the link took users directly to survey and gambling websites. Graham Culey, from Sophos managed to shut down this viral scam, which was a link through the bit.ly short url service. Though folks at bit.ly shut the link, the damage was already done as it had recorded about 15,000 victims of this hoax in just 15 hours.

Freebies to attract facebook members (Image Credit: Sophos)

OMG! What are you doing in this video
OMG! has been an expression that scammers have been using throughout this year. The OMG and WTF scams appeared in varying forms, inviting both excitement and shock. The curious ones who just couldn't stop themselves were not only directed to a survey form which they unwittingly filled, but also spammed their friends’ Wall wanting to share the "wealth". OMG! [name] what are you doing in this video? spread like wildfire. Once you clicked on the link, the malicious software posted the link onto others’ Walls, which made them believe that it's a genuine post from a legitimate sender. Clicking the link only spread the menace, further. Similar OMG scams were Spider under her skin, which would begin with age verification and of course a survey, albeit not before spamming your friends. You might be familiar with other OMG scams like - This is what happened to his Ex-Girlfriend and ex-girlfriend revenge.

Bin Laden Dead Video
One of the most talked about incidents of the year was the death of Osama Bin Laden. The Al-Qaeda leader was killed by U.S. forces in May, this year and the U.S. President declared that his death photos wouldn't be released. Scammers soon came up with supposedly banned footage of the killing, which started spreading on Facebook. The post read, “Disturbing, yet awesome...SHOCKING NEW video of OSAMA BIN LADEN'S DEATH, Exclusive BANNED VIDEO footage of Osama Bin Laden being killed.” Users were tricked into hitting the like and share button, and once the link was hit, it was eventually posted on Walls of others in their profile. And a big surprise, here was that trying to view the video would take you to yet another survey.

Curious users please dont click (Image Credit: Sophos)Oslo Bombings
Sadly, Facebook scammers didn't hesitate to take advantage of another unfortunate tragedy to make money - the Norway bombings were also subject to Social Networking scams. Facebook users who wanted to learn about the happenings in Norway fell victim to this scam. The spam read, "[URL] [Video] OSLO Security Camera Captures Blast! [Video] OSLO Security Camera Captures Blast!" It claimed to flash a video from an Oslo security camera that showed the detonation of a car bomb near a Norwegian government building where several people were killed. However, there was no such camera footage that was recorded. It was a fake YouTube player, which again started off with age verification, but not before you take up a survey. Help Net Security, further revealed that this scam was infecting unaware users at the rate of one user per second.

My Profile was viewed
It's quite common to have the urge and curiosity to know who has been vieweing your profile on the down low. There's a scam just fo this, too. Surprisingly, this one still continues to hit the Facebook platform in different forms and has been around since 2010. ‘Woah! My Profile Was Viewed (number) Times Just Today’ has been making the rounds. It even further states, ‘I can see that I have quite a few stalkers LOL! Find out yours here [link].' The link takes you to a login screen and once you click on it, the Facebook page asks for permission  to access your private data. The actual motive of the scam, whether a survey or acces to private information, is unclear yet. However, one should avoid any link that lets them discover who has been viewing your profile or that asks you to allow access to your data.

Yet another survey scam (Image Credit: Facecrooks)

Basically, scammers earn their buck using such underhanded gimmicks. They get a commission for each completed survey, says Sophos. A few other such links include “Dad Drops His Daughter to Try to Catch A Baseball on LIVE TV!”, which went viral with a Facebook page taking you to the link of the video, which doesn't show up until you fill in a survey. This girl will never forget to turn her webcam off again and [Phishing Alert] Bogus Alerts from Facebook security were also among the several Facebook hoaxes that reached the platform this year.

It isn't just about surveys, your valued information could be misused for criminal actions too and there could be instances that could lead to identity theft. it is necessary that you don't fall victim to such traps.

Tips to avoid falling victim to scams

• Always be alert while clicking on a link (even if sent by a friend), especially if it has suggestive images, free gifts or asking you send some money (like the Western Union Facebook scam).
• Always delete a suspicious post from your Wall.
• Always report spam/abuse, once you know a post isn't genuine.
• Alert Facebook security.
• Facebook scams have a typical style of alluring users. Beware of posts that begin with OMG!, WTF!, Win and so on.
• Beware of links/posts that are suddenly posted by most of your friends, they too could be malacious.

Sophos' Naked Security and Sophos Security Facebook page also keeps you updated with the ongoing Facebook scams and you can report scams too.

Tech Disappointments of 2011 - Tablets

What started as a trickle towards the tail end of 2010, turned into a full-throttled outburst in 2011, as we witnessed a horde of Android tablets come rushing out from top tier manufacturers and even lesser known ones, some of which we didn’t even know existed. This meant we finally had some worthy alternatives to the iPad, not that there was a real need for one, but it doesn’t really hurt to have a little variety. Among the towering number of tablets, we’ve seen some really good ones like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 750,  Lenovo K1 and the Asus Transformer, some that had potential like the Motorola Xoom and Reliance 3G Tab, and then there were the disappointments, which we have lined up for you below.

The reason we called them disappointments and goof-ups or blunders is because technically they are very capable devices and on paper, should march along side the success stories, but they didn't. The reasons vary from poor implementation of the UI, lack of support for useful third party apps, bad design choices and most importantly absurd pricing. It’s some of these factors (or in some case, all of them) that failed to strike a chord with the audience, which is why they just sit there in the corner of store shelves.

HTC Flyer
The Flyer was HTC’s first ever foray into the tablet segment, but they messed it up by pricing it ridiculously high. But that wasn’t the only issue, the tablet as powerful as it was on paper, failed to translate that power in the real world due to which it suffered in video playback. When we tested it, the Sense UI ran super smooth, but the Flyer seemed to struggle with video playback. The stock player couldn’t playback bog standard SD files smoothly, let alone 720p. This was fixable by a third party app, but then you’d lose the SRS sound enhancements, which made a big difference in the audio quality. You’d think a 1.5GHz processor would be able to playback HD files with ease, but sadly that’s not the case.

It's back to the drawing board for HTC

Now, with the recent price drop and the Honeycomb update rolling out, perhaps it does seem a bit more appealing.

BlackBerry PlayBook
RIM’s PlayBook was targeted at a very niche audience, right from it’s inception and just like their other mobile products, it aimed at providing enterprise level security features, which CIOs love and was to be an extension of your BlackBerry. Sadly, RIM was a little too late to the party as they failed to consider the dominance of the iPad and something called the ‘consumerization of IT’.

Not much to play with, after all

The robustness of iOS and its security policy options have led many organizations to adopt the iPad as their tool of choice. This has also spun an ecosystem in which third party vendors have developed specialized apps that meet the security needs of enterprises. With all this already in place, why would companies adopt a product with weaker support for apps? That’s the problem with devices designed for a niche audience, if it fails to strike a chord then it just ends up in limbo. Another reason was the pricing, which wasn’t exactly pocket-friendly. All these factors led to poor sales, so much so that retailers were slashing prices like crazy just to get rid of the excess stock.Acer ICONIA Tab A500
The ICONIA Tab A500 had the potential to be a really good tablet, but lack of proper support is what has landed it in this list. It’s still one of the few tablets to sport a full-sized USB port, which is a boon for swapping data on the move. The main problem we had with the A500 was Honeycomb 3.0, which coupled with Acer’s own tweaks made it quite frustrating to use.

Had potential but lack of support killed it off

Even after six months of launching the tablet, we still haven’t seen the promised 3.1 update in India. It’s almost as if Acer has lost faith in the A500 and moved on to other projects. We also never saw the 3G version that they said they’d launch.

Creative ZiiO 7
The ZiiO’s biggest failing was its horrible resistive screen and even worse, their custom skin. The tablet had really good feature like slim form factor, good build quality, ability to playback 1080p and rather excellent sound quality thanks to their X-Fi sound chip. All of these fall flat on their faces, though without a good interface.

Brilliant PMP marred by a screen from hell

The UI was sluggish and you had to literally poke the screen to get a response. This meant you couldn’t do anything productive with it and without 3G support, it was nothing more than a glorified PMP, and a rather expensive one, too. The poor screen quality was the main deal breaker for what could have been a very good product.

Fly Vision Tablet
We’ve reserved the last spot for something absolutely horrific and no one does that justice than the Fly Vision Tablet. The only things riding in its favour was their ‘decent’ appearance and the fact that it played 720p, but it was just plain bad in every other department. Even at Rs.7,300, which seems cheap at first, it’s not really worth the investment. The tablet wasn’t stable at all and kept constantly crashing and freezing. I guess the Aakash tablet has some competition now.

Not exaclty 'vision'ary

Shazam for Windows Phone With Pinnable Live Tiles Coming

If you still prefer to use Shazam over Microsoft's own Bing Music offering in order to discover tunes you heard while on the go and identify the artist, album and track name, you'll be happy to find out that the app now supports Mango.

The new version is numbered 2.2 and, as you'd expect from any software bit that offers full Mango support, it is now capable of taking advantage of fast app switching as well as pin Live Tiles to your Start Screen. You might not find the app yet in your Marketplace but the link below is where you will probably be able to find the app (or just rely on your Marketplace Tile update counter).