New Bin Laden video scam on Facebook

He's back. A new version of the Facebook scam supposedly linking to videos of the death of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden has emerged, security firm Sophos said. Sophos' Graham Cluley said that the latest variation of the viral scam claims to feature a video from Wikileaks, urging the user to watch it before it is deleted. "OMG! real video of Osama Bin Laden being killed. Video leaked by wikileaks. Watch it before it get deleted," read the message. But Cluley said the link actually points to a similar-looking Indian domain name ending in ".in". Clicking on the link will take one to a third-party webpage, which poses as a security verification check from YouTube. "(What's) happening here is that when you submit the so-called CAPTCHA text you are unwittingly publishing the message to your own Facebook wall. This spreads the message virally to your Facebook friends, and helps spread the scam further on behalf of the bad guys," Cluley said. He said that the scammers make their money by tricking victims into taking an online survey. "They earn commission for each person they managed to complete it, and you might be the sort of person who is tempted to answer the questionnaire in the belief that you'll get to see a video of the Osama bin Laden being killed," he said. Cluley maintained the real YouTube would never ask one to complete an online survey before watching a video, adding scams like this are rife across Facebook. "At the time of writing this latest iteration of the Osama bin Laden Facebook scam appears to have been eradicated. But I wonder how long before a new variant arises?" he added. — TJD, GMA News