Many Facebook users are finding that their friends are announcing online that they have lost weight, and are directing others to follow the HCG diet.
Here’s a typical message:
I've lost 10 pounds in just one week all thanks to HCG! Check it out [LINK]
followed by a comment, seemingly from the same user, saying:
Never thought losing weight could be so easy!!!
Other versions can use different language, such as:
I've lost over a stone in just 2 weeks all thanks to HCG! Check it out [LINK]
If you follow the link, you are typically taken (via a blogspot url) to a website touting a miracle diet.
Of course, it would be something of a coincidence if so many thousands of Facebook users had all lost 10 pounds at the same time, and all decided to tell their Facebook friends using precisely the same wording, wouldn’t it?
If you see a Facebook friend has posted a message like the one above, tell them that scammers have taken advantage of their account to spew out diet spam, and advise them to be a lot more careful in future.
The good news is that if you’re using Sophos products then we can intercept the dodgy webpage, and prevent you from putting even more money into the pockets of the scammers.
Got a friend who has sent out the diet spam message? If they find any suspicious posts on their newsfeed, or unexpected apps or pages that they have liked, then they should obviously remove them.
Affected users should also run an up-to-date anti-virus program on their computers and scan for a possible malware infection. If there is malware present, it may have also grabbed your online passwords – make sure that you haven’t left a backdoor open to your website accounts and change your passwords.
If you use Facebook and want to get an early warning about the latest attacks, you should join the Sophos Facebook page where we have a thriving community of over 160,000 people.
Image credit: Shutterstock.
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