Risky Activity
Fake video attacks are increasingly common as a successful threat targeting social media users.
In a different twist on a fake video attack, the highest-trafficked ".country" site observed by Blue Coat on a day in mid-June was part of a "shocking video" scam network.
This increasingly common scam leads visitors to a "teaser page," usually designed to make them believe they are visiting YouTube, when in reality they are on a fake site that has no legitimate tie to YouTube. The non-working video includes fake comments immediately below it from someone wanting to know how to get the video to play, and someone else explaining that you have to "share" or "like" the video first, or take an online survey. When visitors follow these instructions, they either divulge personal data in the survey, or the scammers spam their Facebook friends.
Blue Coat sees this campaign frequently, often with sites that get hundreds of attempted visits per day, so people are clicking on it. Nearly all of that traffic is coming from Facebook, so the scammers' scheme works.