Malaysia Airlines Flight MH 370: ‘Plane Found in Bermuda Triangle! Passengers Alive’ Video a Scam
A viral Facebook post is claiming there’s video footage of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH 370 in the Bermuda Triangle and that passengers are alive, but it’s just a clickjacking scam.
“Video of Malaysia MH370 Plane found in Bermuda Triangle! Passengers alive!” it reads, claiming there’s video footage of it. “Breaking news video footage of this miracle just released on CNN!”
It shows a passenger plane in the water. However, the image of the plane floating on the water was taken in Bali, Indonesia, in 2013. More than 100 passengers and crew members survived the incident at the time.
When one clicks on the fake Malaysia Airlines-Bermuda Triangle post, they will be taken to a website designed to look like Facebook that asks them to share the post before going any further.
After that, users are told to fill out bogus surveys before seeing the video. The surveys are designed to acquire your personal information–including phone numbers, email addresses, and other data–and scammers then sell it off.
Some variants of the scam can direct users to download a rogue Facebook app will automatically post to one’s newsfeed. The scam can also spread malware.
“Once they have shared as requested, users will then be taken to another fake page that supposedly hosts the video. However, a popup ‘Security Check’ window will appear that claims that they must prove that they are human by clicking a link and participating in an online survey or offer. But, no matter how many surveys or offers they complete, they will never get to see the promised video,” reads a posting from Hoax-Slayer.com.
The survey information will then be sold to online marketers, which is how the scammers make their money.
It’s not recommended to share, like, or fill out the survey information. If you’ve shared or “liked” it, it’s probably best to delete it from your Facebook wall.
If you’ve given it access to your account, you should remove it. Go to your Facebook application settings page, and it will list all the applications that you’ve given apps access to. Click on the “X” next to the application name to remove it.