Scams and threats to avoid, plus new security tools
WATCH OUT FOR...‘Watch funeral’ scams on Facebook
What’s the threat?
Facebook scammers are conning people into paying to watch funerals live online. They hijack real memorial images and messages posted by funeral firms with fake links to live streams of the ceremony. Clicking the ‘Watch live now’ button leads to a page asking for payment-card information.
Some of these fake streams contain the message: ‘You will get the link once the registration is complete. I introduced this rule only for scams. Thank you.’
It’s proven a successful scam so far partly because victims can’t imagine that fraudsters would stoop so low as to exploit a funeral. Also, it looks genuine because the scammers use photos and personal details of the deceased. These are easy to steal from real obituaries, and can be sent to the deceased person’s friends on Facebook. Often friends get pop-up messages inviting them to watch the ceremony live.
How can you stay safe?
Nick Britten, communications lead for the National Association of Funeral Directors, told the BBC that funeral directors generally don’t charge for live streaming. He also warned mourners to look out for external links that ask for donations, or claim to be raising money for charity.
If you want to watch a live stream of a funeral, contact the company directly to see if it’s available. Only sign in through the link they provide, not one on Facebook or elsewhere on social media. Some funeral firms have responded to the scam by stating online that ceremonies aren’t being streamed live.
Meta, which owns Facebook, says it removes fake funeral links as soon as it becomes aware of them. But it could be fighting a losing battle because AI is making it so easy for fraudsters to automate such scams on a large scale.
New tools Chrome’s updated Safe Browsing
Until now, Google Chrome’s Safe Browsing has used a list stored on your computer to check whether a website or downloaded file is safe. This list updates every 30 to 60 minutes, which might seem often enough were it not for Google’s research that shows on average malicious sites exist online for under 10 minutes. That means some were appearing, scamming
