Right now, there is a very dangerous Facebook scam lurking on the internet and that scam is known as “like-farming”. Facebook is a platform where people share content that’s worthy of a “like” or “share” and sometimes there is content that triggers the emotions of the audience and people just reflexively end up clicking on the “like” button. Now, all of this is great and there’s no doubt in the fact that Facebook is one great place to be on, but on the other hand, there are people out there known as “attackers” who are waiting to take advantage of you. Even Facebook is not safe now and scammers are using the “like farming” technique to harm people and get access to their personal information and personal data.
What Is Like-Farming?
It’s a technique in which an attacker posts some attention-grabbing or emotional story that he knows, people will reflexively “like” and “share”. Now, it’s a rule on Facebook that the more likes and shares there are on a post, the higher its visibility will be. This is exactly what benefits the attackers, they get more likes and shares on their malicious post and then they trick people into giving their personal information to them. They use this information for selling purposes, to infect their PCs and to get access to the important data on their computers.
What You Need to Be Careful of?
Now, it’s difficult to judge which post is for real and which one is from an attacker, but what you can do is that you can control your “reflex” on the liking and sharing button. Just look out for the posts that are triggering your emotions one way or the other. If you think that liking a post of a cancer patient on Facebook can help him in collecting some funds, then know that it’s a total fraud because this isn’t how the fund collection is done.
Also, be careful of the posts that ask you for a “like” to show that you are against a step taken by the government or that you are against something that has a lot of hype around. These attackers can make your life a living hell so you need to be careful of them and you need to make sure that you, your data and everything is protected.
Overall Verdict
Ransomware attacks and malicious attacks like “Like-farming” are at a spike right now and people are quite afraid out there because no one is safe and this is a bitter truth. However, to make sure that you don’t get attacked by some hijacker or attacker, just be careful about what posts you are liking, what posts you are sharing and what websites you are visiting. On top of everything, keep a backup of all your important data and files so that even if you get attacked, you still have access to that data and you can restore it anytime you want to.
