Scammers are already taking advantage of the news that a LulzSec member has been arrested in London, England thanks to a cooperative effort between FBI and Scotland Yard. The 19-year-old is quite clearly not a ringleader for LulzSec, which is structured to be a leaderless organization. Nevertheless, just like with previous scams, those up to no good are leveraging Facebook with sensational headlines to target ignorant victims.
This version says something along the lines of “The Creator of LulzSec arrested in London (PHOTO TAKEN BY THE POLICE)” and “SEE THE PICTURE WITHOUT BLURRING, SHARE THIS PAGE AND LIKE IT !!” followed by a link, according to Sophos. There is a very blurry picture of a man being lead away from a building by two people who we assume are policemen – we can’t tell because everything has been purposefully obscured so that you’ll click to see more. Clicking on the link takes you to a Facebook page (with a larger version of the blurred picture) which urges you to Like and share the link with your Facebook friends before you can see the full image.
As with previous Facebook scams, sharing the link with others just helps spread it further across the social network. Instead of the supposed shocking picture, you are instead presented with a page to download a file called “iLividSetupV1.exe” that in turn tries to install a series of toolbars. This is how the scammer earns his or her money: a commission for every toolbar installed.
As I’ve recommended before, if you see a scam like this one, report it. Then go check your own wall to make sure you’re not spreading the scam; the sooner you clean it up and unlike the page, the better. You can even contact Facebook Security if you’d like to.
As for the picture, it actually is a hacker being led away by policemen. Mert Ortac was arrested in Turkey in late 2008: check out Kidnapped Hacker Found in Turkey, Arrested for the full story and the image, without any blurring.
If you want to learn more about the LulzSec arrest, please see the following stories:
