Areps.at wants your Facebook password
Hello, and welcome to round who-knows-how-many of the Facebook phishing scam saga. Today, if you get a Facebook message that says “check areps.at,” don’t do it.
In case you haven’t been faced with this situation before, and thus haven’t read up on how this areps.at scam and others before work, here’s a little rundown.
Just your run-of-the mill password theft
So in these Facebook phishing scams, a dummy web site that looks like the Facebook login page appears. In this case, that dummy site is areps.at. The phishers want to dupe you into plugging in your username and password so they can steal them.
The phishers then use the login information you gave them at areps.at to send out more “check areps.at” messages to your friends using your Facebook account.
Avoid identity theft
Really, I don’t know what is the point of these areps.at phishing scams. Entertainment for the scammers? What I do know is that letting some hacker stranger get a hold of your password is not a good idea. You could end up with a fast payday loan that you didn’t get in your name.
If you use the same password for an online bank account or anything that contains your credit card number or other personal information, you could end up getting your identity or your money stolen.
What do do
So, if you get a message that says “check areps.at,” does that mean you have to delete your Facebook page, change all your passwords and start over? No, just delete it.
Simply opening the message won’t cause any harm. Just do not click on the link, whatever you do. Delete the message, ignore it, and trust me when I say that checking out areps.at “just out of curiosity” is not going to pay off in any way.
Same old story
These Facebook phishers are just keeping at it. They’ve already used dozens of addresses to create dummy web sites and steal people’s login information.
Some of the previous sites were 121.im, 151.im, fbstarter.com, ponbom.im … you get the idea. They will no doubt have a new one next week and continue their little scam until people quit falling for it or they get caught.
Don’t panic, just don’t click
I have gotten a phishing scam message on my Facebook page before, so I know from personal experience that these messages are very easy to recognize. The message came from someone who I wouldn’t ordinarily get a message from.
It was a former coworker who I hadn’t talked to or seen for a while. The message said nothing other than “check 121.im.” I was a little tempted to click on it, just to see what it was. Then I remembered that these password-stealing scams had been going on for weeks.
I knwe better then to click on the link, and now you do too. You and your Facebook page are safe as long as you do not follow the instructions if you get a message that says “check areps.at.”
