BEFRIENDING

Usually, fake accounts are used for impersonation. These accounts imitate celebrities, existing brands or organisations, or random people. At times, the accounts can imitate friends, relatives or others who are close to the potential victim. Sometimes, instead of creating fake accounts, hackers target accounts of inactive users and use them to target the friends who are still active on the platform.

When creating accounts that impersonate celebrities or organisations, various social media platform loopholes are used. E.g. it’s possible to imitate a popular YouTube channel since the name displayed on YouTube channels, and YouTube accounts can be different from the actual account name. Within YouTube, users can send friend requests to anyone on the platform. Once accepted, they can send that person direct messages. This way, someone impersonating a famous YouTuber can send messages to subscribers, fooling people that the said star themselves contacted them.

Sometimes they send elementary messages informing the recipient that they’ve won something, inviting them to click links that potentially lead to scam or malicious sites. Other times these threat actors leveraged a combination of creative impersonation techniques, which boosted the legitimacy of their messages and improved the likelihood that users would click their links.

For befriending, both fake and real accounts may be used. But it depends on the medium in which befriending is happening, i.e. in online video games usually nicknames are used which does not give any information about the true identity of the person.

By using impersonation or befriending scammers can also trick people into:

• giving away money (by transferring them or “making a donation “);
• giving away sensitive information;
• downloading malicious software;
• visiting scam sites.

A typical impersonation attempt by cybercriminals is for them to pretend to be with one of the principal online players that you may pay a regular subscription fee to. Apple Music, Spotify, Netflix, and others are commonly seen. You’ll receive a breathlessly-worded message in your inbox warning you of some problem with your account. And if you don’t click right this second, they’ll have no choice but to lock you out of your account and block any further access. If you do click, you will be sent to a copycat website that looks similar (if not identical) to the impersonated company, and you will be asked to provide your login credentials.

Once you “log in” to the fake site, you will be asked to confirm all your billing details – but the criminals ask for far more information than you should be providing. They’ll ask for your complete mailing address, your full credit card details, including expiry and CVV code. Some will ask for other incredibly personal information like your mother’s maiden name and your Social Security Number. Everything a cybercriminal needs to steal your identity, open new accounts in your name, or take over some of your other accounts. Other cybercriminals will use similar techniques but claim to be from your bank or your cell phone carrier.