If you get a “Looks like you …” message from a contact, beware. In recent days, it has been the bait used by hackers as part of a new phishing campaign on the Messenger application.

The message to be avoided is followed by a broken heart and a link, which leads to a Facebook identification page. Be careful, this is a trap, since the page in question is actually a fake Facebook page intended to retrieve the credentials of gullible people.

Data resale

Once the hackers have this data, they log into the victims’ Facebook account to spread their phishing campaign to all contacts on the account. By snowball effect, criminals can thus recover a large number of identifiers, data then resold at significant prices on certain forums.

Additionally, hackers can use stolen credentials to do “credential stuffing”. This type of cyber attack involves using stolen account information – usually lists of IDs and associated passwords – to gain unauthorized access to other user accounts through large-scale automated login requests. Criminals thus have the leisure to connect to other web platforms and trace confidential information …

What to do ?

To avoid the scam, now is the time to be cautious. If you receive a message similar to “It looks like you …”, ask the contact who sent it to you if they were the author.

In case you have already clicked on the link following the message, look at the URL of the page to verify if it is not a fake Facebook page claiming your credentials.

Finally, if you have already entered your credentials in a suspicious page, modify them quickly, before informing your contacts that they could soon receive a fraudulent message from you.