At first glance, this email looks like an official Facebook message. It claims that you have notifications pending and urges you to click a link to see activity that you have missed on Facebook.
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Email Is Not From Facebook
However, Facebook did not send the email and the links do not point to Facebook. The “missed activity” claim is just a ruse designed to get you to click the links in the email. The spammers have simply copied the formatting and colour scheme of genuine Facebook messages as a means of enticing unsuspecting recipients into following their links.
Links Open Spammy Pharmacy Website
Following the links opens a dodgy Canadian Pharmacy website that tries to sell you various pharmaceutical products.
It is very unwise to buy any medication from one of these spam pharmacy websites. Even if you do actually receive a product that you order on such a site, you have no way of knowing if it is the real thing or some potentially dangerous substitute. Thus, taking such medication may be dangerous and against the law.
And such sites often do not use secure pages to process credit card transactions, which could put your credit card details at risk. Moreover, any outfit willing to use deceptive and highly unethical tactics to promote its wares – such as sending spam email disguised as Facebook messages – is not someone who can be trusted with your credit card or other personal details.
To make matters worse, the sites that these spam messages link to often harbour various forms of malware.
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Spammers Often Use Such Methods
Spammers have regularly used such tactics. In an earlier campaign, users received emails falsely claiming that their Facebook account had been deactivated. As in this example, links in the emails pointed to an online drug store. And spammers have also used bogus Twitter emails that again featured links to Canadian Pharmacy websites.
Another variant claims that Facebook Support has sent you a message.
Just Hit Delete
If you receive one of these spam emails, just hit the “Delete” key. Keep in mind that online criminals also use fake Facebook notification emails in phishing and malware attacks. It is always safest to access Facebook by entering the address into your browser’s address bar or via an official app. If Facebook does have any important messages for you, you will be notified when you log in.
1 comment
Get a lot of this stuff but at least it’s tagged as junk with my mail account. Must be somewhat effective though because it fills up my junk mail. Stuff like this has been around for a long time. I suspect it’s because their are plenty of email address lists floating around and being sold.