Scams don’t take a holiday. In fact, it’s safe to expect more of them – on social media, SMS, phone calls or email – around festivities.
We spotted one (or perhaps several) on Facebook just before Christmas. It wasn’t a post doing the rounds on a closed group. Instead, it was a barrage of posts posted by a number of fake pages and profiles on a legitimate Facebook Event created by a legitimate page in Malta.
Malta Artisan Markets, the said legitimate page, created the Facebook Event to advertise its Christmas market taking place on 15th December 2024 at Palazzo Parisio, an 18th-century palace in Naxxar. This market is a much-anticipated annual event that attracts hundreds if not thousands of people wishing to browse handmade goods in a beautiful setting. Around 4,000 Facebook users pressed the ‘Interested’ button on the Facebook Event created for the 2024 edition.
In the days and weeks leading up to the market, the Facebook Event was flooded with scam posts advertising tickets for sale (despite no tickets being required to attend the market) and free slots for vendors wanting to set up stalls. Similar messages were also posted as comments under posts on the Facebook Event.
When we looked into the creators of these fake messages, we saw the usual red flags: profiles with few to no ‘friends’, pages posing as profiles with little to no followers, recently created pages/profiles, et cetera. The messages themselves were also a giveaway. They were almost identical in content, consisted of poor language grammar, and often simply felt off stylistically. At least one such post opted for Halloween emojis, a strange choice for the season. A snowman might have been more appropriate.
You might be wondering where the malicious element came in. All of the posts asked users to contact the posting page/profile by direct message for more information, ‘to register’, or ‘to be added to their vendor list’. We expect that should an unsuspecting user have got in touch with the scammer, a harmful URL would have been sent to them, as happens in most digital scams, ultimately stealing their personal information and/or money.
This particular Christmas market was a prime target because it is so popular. It would be no surprise if digital Grinches targeted other events with similar scams over the holidays.
Whether you are one for New Year’s resolutions or not, stay vigilant. Scammers work all year round.
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Originally published here.
