Profile Spy Scams on Facebook

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

Updated

About the Author

I transform ideas into successful outcomes, building on my 25 years of experience in cybersecurity. As the CISO at Axonius, I lead the security program to earn customers' trust. I'm also a Faculty Fellow at SANS Institute, where I author and deliver training for incident responders. The diversity of cybersecurity roles I've held over the years and the accumulated expertise, allow me to create practical solutions that drive business growth.

Learn more