It can be a trap
Is it a celebrity on the Facebook sending a friend request
CAUTION BY FIAZ FAZILI
A few days ago I got a facebook friend request with greetings message, Edd Mubarik “ Add as a friend---Hina..Ra.. Kha…” ( name changed) .’’Respond to friend request –Confirm it”. I did not know HK . It’s not the first time anyone has tried to friend me on FB from what appears to be a fake profile.? The moment you receive a friend request from a celebrity of fame like “Ms.HRK”, definitely for a moment you can’t hide your excitement. Decades back.... “ Add as a Friend”- a candid request like this from any high profile-celebrity to me,it would be crazy not to be a friend with famous people such as artists like Shah Rukh , tennis star Ms.Mirza or a charismatic Ms HK..,who recently attracted unprecedented media attention about her looks and sense of style to top the digital media as well Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus – everything was abuzz with Ms.HRK .Then you remember the last friend request from Omar Abdullah, that you never accepted because of fear was another fake profile. Declining -a friendship request message from a personality like Mrs.HK, who has a prominent profile in the media and is easily recognized --- Why not? Apart from your religious motivations realizing that every form of communication, from regular post- office mail to e-mail, chat and others, is subject to fraud and scams .Working with checklists in my profession have taught me to follow the routines of “ABC..,..if you want to avoid gross errors. Checking the FB profile of this request, I found exactly what I expected to find. This profile was almost certainly set up by someone out to steal something, and who has probably set up dozens of such scam profiles all over socail network. Backtracking, checking on myself my own displayed FB profile, a nicely tailored one for socio-religious blogging displaying nothing impressive which could have been an irresistible attraction for any high profile celebrity like Ms.HK. Even my old “Techfit ,” -style college photographs compared to conventional sportswear tagged onto me by my naughty friends were missing. Taking this “Add as a friend ,”request a Satanic Devil Trap --could be a FB "hacker.”Result- a convincing fake identity to trick you into accepting their friend request., who is trying to add (trick) you as a friend. I said,”Excuse me- Thanks for friend request- yeh rishta phir kabhi..."Social networking sites are being targeted by spammers at an alarming rate. Various virus writers as well as cyber-criminals are using the creation of these particular ghost accounts of high profile celebrities or fake identity of an attractive face to their advantage. Moments like this reveal that we can be too trusting of a simple profile with a high pretty face or we get readily swayed by requests from impostors of high profile celebrity. FB is the one site on the internet that is probably the most used. It has recently been discovered that over forty percent of new social networking profiles are actually fake. We all want more friends, but actual people who are legitimate net users… and it’s also nice to have met them in person before. That’s my general rule of thumb also when accepting any friend request: have you met this person in “real-life” before? If yes, accept. If no, then forget it. They are most likely scammers, phishers, or some other form of identity thieves. Using a fake name or operating under a false identity is a violation of social networking policy. The site also has systems in place to flag or block potential fake accounts. The fake profiles are generally set up by a combination of either spammers or various malware and virus writers. One of the many tactics which are used is to persuade users to visit the fake profile page. This is achieved either by sending a friend request or sending a personal message.Conclusion---next time before adding any celebrity or unknown sender as a friend, remember the new spam of fake profile posing as friends so choose your friends carefully on social networks.
