Diehard fans of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Arvind Kejriwal and political newbies on a virtual prowl for the latest on the party, watch out!
The online space abounds with identity stealers waiting to lure you into sharing your social media details — and AAP is their bait.
According to computer security company Symantec, those looking to steal online identities, of late, have been tricking users into liking a false AAP page. The false website has a poster of AAP and Kejriwal with his popular tweet, “Political revolution in India has begun”. The page is titled, ‘Unite with us against corruption’ and has a prominent ‘like’ button with the Facebook logo as seen on countless other sites.
However, once you click the ‘Like’ button, the next screen asks you to log in to Facebook to ‘Like’ the page. Thanks to an oversight by the developers, the link no longer says AAP but says ‘Log in to use your Facebook account to like cute baby pic’. This should immediately set off warning bells for most people.
After logging in, one can see a ‘Like’ button similar to the real ones found on Facebook and it even has a fake number of ‘likes’ listed next to it. But according to Symantec, the button is just a dummy and at this point, your information would already have been compromised.
In its official blog Symantec advises users to check the URL in the address bar before logging into any account as well as to start using encrypted websites which display an https address in the address bar. Both Facebook and Twitter offer full-time secure server access which can be enabled in the user preferences. According to Symantec, the servers for the false website are based in Lansing, Michigan, USA.
WHAT IS PHISHING?
Phishing, or information theft as it has come to be known, is the method of stealing sensitive information of users like passwords, usernames, credit card details, etc by deceiving them into thinking that they are logging into a normal website.