Meta/Facebook Intellectual Property Scam

The Meta/Facebook Intellectual Property (IP) scam is still alive and kicking.

It’s typically sent to you by DM (Direct Message). This scam has been around for years. It can be jarring if you’ve never seen it before.

Let’s break this DM down.

The first paragraph uses language to instill fear. One tactic in Social Engineering that gets victims to comply is fear of loss of something. In this case, fear of loss of your personal or business page for allegedly “infringing” on Meta’s Intellectual Property. This is to get you to click on the link to “submit a complaint.”

If you do click the link, here’s potentially what will happen:

• Your account could be taken over.
• It could be a web form asking you to fill out sensitive info, which could be login information (in which case see the first point.)
• You could be directed to malicious web page that loads malware on your device.

Some things you can do to protect yourself:

• Don’t click on the link.
• Report the DM as spam.
• Ensure that you’re taking advantage of all of Facebook’s security and privacy settings.
• Ensure anti-virus/anti-malware is on your devices.
• Make sure devices and software are up to date.
• Back your files up.

If you unfortunately click on the link, here are some things you can do:

• On a clean device, reset the password to your Meta account. Then start resetting passwords to accounts like your email, bank, credit card, crypto wallet, mobile service provider, and anything else of value. This race is to get ahead of things, should the bad actor target accounts of value that you have.
• If your account is taken over, make sure this source from Facebook is kept handy somewhere https://www.facebook.com/help/203305893040179/

As somewhat of an aside, we can’t know if you infringed on someone’s IP. If that DM, or even email, has you questioning the validity of the claim, it is best for you to reach out to a trusted attorney who can tell you if it is or isn’t an issue. Take a screenshot of the communication for documentation purposes. The attorney might want to see it.

Additional Protection For Business Owners

If you’re a business owner, here are a couple of more things you can do to protect the organization from a Meta Intellectual Property scam (Note: This also applies to other scams that target Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and any other social media platform you use.):

• If you have employees, or a third party, that manage your social media, ensure that you have a social media policy.
• Ensure that everyone goes through training on how to recognize/report scams targeting the social media platforms you use whether it’s Meta properties (Facebook, Instagram, Threads) or something else.

How we help:

Relevant Personal Services

We can provide you and/or your family or friends training on how to detect and protect against scams/phishing attempts.

A reason you might be receiving these phishing attempts and scams is you have data out there being used by bad actors. With Bsquared Intel’s Data Breach Reporting Service we can identify breaches you might be caught up in. The reporting also provides best practices and tools to put into place for better protection.

Book time with us to help you better secure your devices and online accounts.

Should a scam lead to an account takeover, the concern for Identity Theft increases. We do offer Identity Theft protection and restoration services.

Relevant Business Services

We can provide you and your team custom cybersecurity awareness training to help protect against scams and phishing attempts.

We can help you craft a social media policy for the organization.

Bsquared Intel’s External Cyber Risk/Threat Assessments help look for things like misused/abused intellectual property, security gaps, and threats toward the business. This service is also integral for complying with any State/Federal law or regulation that requires you to protect data.

We also provide consulting services to small to medium sized business with cybersecurity compliance needs.

Next Steps:

Be proactive in taking steps to protect yourself, your family, or your business.

Use the contact form to schedule time for a free strategy call.

Lastly, sign up for our cybersecurity newsletter to stay up to date with news, tips, tricks, and tools.