Monday, June 18, 2012

Facebook ‘Adding Game’: Harmless Fun or Calm Before the Spam Storm?

Facebook logoAre people unknowingly setting themselves up to be spammed on Facebook?

Researchers over at Barracuda Labs have noticed some suspicious activity on Facebook involving (what appears to be) bait accounts luring people into play the “adding game" - which simply involves liking the designated game status, leaving a comment and friending anyone that likes your comment.

Here’s an example of a status welcoming folks to play the game:

Adding Game Post
Adding GAME" ♥ ^.^

Step 1 : LIKE! This status or i will DELETE your comment c:
Step 2 : - COMMENT! Anything ;) ;) :P ♥ (:
Step 3 : Whoever LIKES! your comment, Add them

Seems like a fairly harmless thing to do, right?

That is, until you notice that every page (or user) that’s initiating one of these “adding games” has an attractive female in the default picture.

Combine that with the fact that every single status update is simply firing up another round of the Adding Game and you might begin to suspect that these are fake accounts focused on racking up subjects for a future spam/scam campaign.

At least, that’s the conclusion that researchers over at Barracuda Labs have reached and I can't help but to agree.

If you happen to come across the “Adding Game” on Facebook, I recommend taking a pass on playing and stick to only accepting friend requests from people you know. Otherwise you could run the risk of having your News feed inundated with spam, scams and updates from complete strangers.

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