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Profile Spy Scams on Facebook

Facebook scams promising "Find out who viewed your profile" trick victims into revealing personal details including phone numbers. The malicious site shows fake Facebook pages in the background to make victims think they're within Facebook's walled garden. These scams have circulated since at least late 2009.

Social networking sites are a popular platform for fraud and malicious activities. Tim Armstrong at Kaspersky Lab looked into a common scam on Facebook that promises to tell the person “Find out who has been viewing your facebook profile with Profile Spy!” The scam attempts to trick the victim into revealing personal details, including a mobile phone number. The malicious site shows a fake Facebook page in the background, to make victims think they are within the “walled garden” of Facebook.

The scam was also described by Puneet Sahalot, whose blog post show additional screenshots and variations of the Profile Spy scam.

A version of a Profile Spy-like scam has been going around since at least late 2009.

Lenny Zeltser

About the Author

Lenny Zeltser is a cybersecurity executive with deep technical roots, product management experience, and a business mindset. As CISO at Axonius, he leads the security and IT program, focusing on trust and growth. He is also a Faculty Fellow at SANS Institute and the creator of REMnux, a popular Linux toolkit for malware analysis. Lenny shares his perspectives on security leadership and technology at zeltser.com.

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