Beware: Facebook Phishing Emails

This Type of Phishing Does Not Require a Rod or a Fish

As a business owner, you receive many emails throughout your day. Whether it is your personal email or your business email address, you receive a large amount of emails vying for your attention. Each day, 3.4 billion phishing emails are sent around the world. Just to keep that in perspective, there are 333 billion emails sent and received daily.



There are so many online scams, phone scams, and email scams, that it has become increasingly difficult to determine what is real and what is fake in terms of communications between social media platforms and the consumers that use them. Cybercrimes have increased over recent years, with phishing emails becoming the most widespread forms of cybercrime. In fact, 94% of cyber-attacks are performed through emails. It is becoming increasingly more important to become knowledgeable of any potential threats.

We all are aware of the extended warranty phone scams. It seems like everyone receives one phone call about that scam each week, but this scam is different, and the scammers want different information. The type of phishing I am referring to is a type of phishing called social media. These scammers attempt to gather personal info like login credentials, credit card information, and other personal information.

Once they gather that information, they are free to rummage through your personal information to gather any other personally identifiable information like your phone number, photos, and even banking details. If you run ads on your Facebook business page, or even make purchases on Facebook Marketplace, your banking information could be exposed.

This blog will detail what to look out for and how to make sure that you are prepared for an email requesting or demanding either account info, or for you to sign in.

When you create a business page, the page you have created will be connected to your personal Facebook page so that you can easily access it and manage it. With that being said, it is important to note that the login information you have for your personal account will be the credentials you use to see any of the pages you have admin access to.

Having multiple pages being accessed using one set of login credentials is convenient, but if you were to fall pray to the Facebook email scam, your page, and any other page you have admin access to, is under threat to be stolen by these phishers.

Facebook will never ask you for your login information, so it is important to note that Facebook will not send communications requesting you to log in.

Facebook has a list that illustrates what those phishing emails may look like. The list is below:

• Notifications about friend requests, messages, events, photos, and videos.
• False claims that you went against our Community Standards.
• Warnings that something will happen to your account if you don't update it or take a certain action.
• Claims or offers that sound too good to be true (such as winning a Facebook Lottery.)

Here are some ways to determine if the emails you are reading are phishing scams or not:

• Look at the sender’s email address and decide if you think it is legitimate. More often than not, an email notification will pop up from @facebookmail.com. If you receive an email from an address that does not match, Facebook recommends that you ignore or delete the email.
• Look at the subject of the email. If you notice that the subject states that you have won a contest or that someone is trying to access your account. Those are not real emails, so delete or ignore those emails.
• If they provide a long link in the email, hover over the link. DO NOT CLICK THE LINK. It will show you what website it would take you to. It is best practice to follow the first two steps and decide whether to ignore or delete the email.
• Check if the email is addressed to you. Scam emails may address you as sir/madam, or it may not even address you.
• These scam emails may ask for personal information like your login credentials. Ignore the email or delete it if the first four steps apply. Disregard the email if it asks for personal information.

These are things to look out for, but always be skeptical about the communications you receive via email. This isn’t meant specifically for business owners.

 These scammers do not care who you are, so please, pay attention to the emails you receive. Also, make sure to change your passwords once or twice a year to make sure that you continue to have control of your social media platforms. At the end of the day, these scammers have impersonated Facebook to great effect, and they will continue to do so. We at Optimize Social Media/Optimize Digital Marketing are emboldened to assist you in your social media needs. Give us a call if you are looking for social media management services.