Ever been clickjacked?

My father was driving overseas when he noticed some people on the roadside pointing at his front tyre, as if something was seriously awry. When he promptly pulled over, they motioned for him to drive forward and then back, to better see what the problem was.

Little did he know that they were making him drive over a screw! They then had the gall to offer roadside assistance and charge him for it. (That’s one way to drum up business, I suppose.) It was only afterwards that he realised he’d been had.

This type of ‘social engineering’ – perhaps ‘manipulation’ or ‘fraud’ would be a better name – exploits the trust that some unlucky soul unwittingly places in a crook. And when you look online, this sort of thing is on the rise, especially on social media sites like Facebook.

The essence of any community, even online, is trust, and we don’t expect to be scammed by our friends. We are certainly more trusting of something delivered through a friend’s profile online. And that’s what can make us easy prey.

Now there’s no point making a plan for your money and setting aside savings if you are not going to protect it, or if you are just going to end up losing it to a social media scam.

The warning signs

• You receive a friend request or a follow request from a stranger.

• You receive a message from a social networking site requesting confirmation of your username and password.

• You receive a message from a friend or family member who is apparently travelling and needs money urgently.

We’re all vulnerable

Like most, I know I’ve certainly been ‘clickjacked’ a number of times – clicking on something that looked interesting and finding it took me somewhere else entirely, like to an annoying ad or a survey I didn’t want to take. Who hasn’t?

Luckily I haven’t clicked anything – or at least I don’t think I have – that has launched some malware or spyware to attack my machine. It could be worse.

The fact is, scammers will exploit whatever it is we’re looking for online and try to reroute us. Whether we’re looking for money, love, a place to rent or invest, or just typical online shopping, there’s always a lure that gets us to bite.

And all too often what they hope to phish out is our personal details, which can be used to steal our identity: birthdate and age, location, phone number, email address, job, family details, and maybe even a photo.

It all looks so real

Nowadays anyone can set up a social media page, even a fake business – it's easy to set up a profile on the big social networking sites. And for criminal types, this is their chance to pass themselves off as someone else.

Online ads on social media sites may also not be real. Fake log-in pages can look very convincing. Unfortunately, even just clicking on fake advertising can give scammers an open door into your computer.

How do you tell what’s real? Often the clues lie in what they ask for.

It’s easier to tell something’s amiss if they require something obviously dangerous, like our credit card numbers, PINs or cash.

But how about an email address? Even a faux website asking you to create a new password may be just phishing for a password you use often (as many of us do use the same ones repeatedly).

So if you’re on Facebook, think carefully before you click, even if the link is from friends. If a webpage or a video looks like something your friend would not normally post, move on and don’t look back.

Protect yourself

• Set your social networking profiles to private.

• Keep your personal details personal.

• Protect your accounts with strong passwords and change them regularly.

• Keep usernames and passwords to yourself.

• Only post information that would not leave you or your family vulnerable.

• Avoid suspicious links on social networking sites.

• Delete strange-looking files or attachments.

• Ignore friend requests or follow requests from strangers.

• If you receive an unexpected request for money from what appears to be a friend or family member, contact them via another means to check the request is genuine.

Here’s more on social media scams