Cybersecurity experts warn of Facebook Messenger ‘upgrade’ scam

SINGAPORE: Scammers are targeting Singaporeans by promoting an allegedly upgraded version of Facebook Messenger that redirects victims to scam sites that steal their data.

And it appears they were promoting the scam with ads on Facebook itself.

International cybersecurity company Group-IB has flagged the scam campaign, which involves about 1,000 fake Facebook profiles targeting users in more than 80 countries, including Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand.

It found that the fraudsters created these fake accounts with names mimicking the real Facebook Messenger and that they were using the official Messenger logo as their profile photo.

Using these accounts, which bore names like “Massanger”, the fraudsters made posts touting an “upgraded” version of Facebook Messenger with purported features such as being able to see who has visited one’s profile, seeing deleted messages, and upgrades to “Gold Messenger”.

The posts included links that users were directed to click on to “upgrade”, but which actually led them to scam sites that look like official Facebook login pages.

To bypass Facebook’s scam filters, the links in the posts by the fraudsters had been shortened with the help of legitimate services such as linktr.ee and bit.ly.

The posts were also promoted via paid advertisement campaigns on Facebook.

Once redirected to the scam sites, users are tricked into entering their login data, giving scammers access to their accounts.