Sophos: New diet spam spreading on Facebook

A new round of spam posts is spreading quickly on social networking site Facebook where “friends” claim they have lost weight and urging everyone to try the “HCG diet.”

 

Computer security firm Sophos said the posts would claim a Facebook user had lost 10 pounds in just one week, with the user urging friends to check out the diet.

 

“Other versions can use different languages (but) if you follow the link, you are typically taken (via a blogspot url) to a website touting a miracle diet,” Sophos said in a blog post.

 

Sophos advised Facebook users to advise their friends who had posted such a message that scammers may have taken advantage of their accounts to spew out diet spam.

 

It said its computer security products can intercept the dodgy webpage, and prevent users from putting even more money into the pockets of the scammers.

 

Also, it urged affected users to run an up-to-date anti-virus program on their computers and scan for a possible malware infection.

 

“If there is malware present, it may have also grabbed your online passwords - make sure that you haven’t left a backdoor open to your website accounts and change your passwords,” it said. — RSJ, GMA News