Brendan Higgins

It is not the critic who counts.

Facebook coming in clutch with these malicious ads.

Facebook Ads

Don’t trust ads you see on Facebook, even if if it seems like a giant multibillion dollar corporation should be able to keep malicious ads off their platform.

In late 2020, they can’t.

The worst part about these ads is that if you click one, suddenly the Facebook trackers decide that you’re super interested in these Lego scams, and continually bombard you with them.

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Just remember, if something looks too good to be true, it usually is. For example, if someone claims to be selling an $800 Lego set for $35, you should immediately be suspicious.

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After some digging, it was obvious these were scam websites designed to steal credit card information, and potentially more as I stumbled into some malicious looking Javascript embedded on the page which had been seen before.

How To Not Get Phished

Even if the website looks convincing, it doesn’t mean it’s legitimate.

Tip #1 - check the URL.
  • hxxps://us[.]brickstoyna[.]cc/
  • hxxps://vips[.]sgzltoys[.]com/
  • hxxps://top[.]bricksland[.]shop/
  • hxxps://shops[.]sgzltoys[.]com/

Do these look familiar? No. Yeah, there’s a reason for that.

Never heard of these amazing sites? Nope? There’s a reason for that, too.

Tip #2 - Don’t be tricked into acting impulsively.

A common theme in Phishing is that they try to instill a sense of urgency in you so that they can short-circuit your normally logical brain. Again, if it seems too good to be true - it probably is. Don’t feel rushed to check out on an unknown website because you’re worried about an item not being in stock. The only thing you’re losing out on is not losing your Credit Card details.

Tip #3 - Check Threat Intelligence Websites.

www.virustotal.com is great. You can also try www.pulsedive.com or just a simple Google search of the domain to try and find more info. malicious

Tip #4 - Help others.

If you see something like this - comment on the Ad that the link is a scam, and report the ad to Facebook so they can (maybe) do a better job in the future.

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