Scammers hope you will be tricked by a message from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, where he offers free iPads and iPhones to randomly selected individuals:

The letter comes from vielmasevs@hotmail.com with topic Hello Facebook User.

Clicking on the link might lead you to an online competition claiming that you are the “potential winner” of an iPhone.

But make sure that you read the small print. It turns out that by participating you are signing up for a mobile phone subscription service, which will charge me some £4.50 a week.

The motivation of the spam message claiming to come from Mark Zuckerberg, is to drive traffic to online competitions and surveys like this – the spammers will earn affiliate commission every time they trick someone into signing up.

You should always be suspicious of offers which sound too good to be true, and look out for clues which ring alarm bells (in this case, for instance, “Mark Zuckerberg” has written from a Hotmail address – hardly likely!)

(Naked Security)

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