Romantic scams for my Valentine

Valentine's Day: a time to be romantic by treating that special someone. Or a time to be bitter and single. It's also, apparently, a convenient time for scammers to prey on vain and the insecure.

Social networks and the internet as a whole are ideal places for Valentine's Day scams, especially with the rise of so-called 'rogue' apps on Facebook.

Security firm Bitdefender has released a list of top Valentine's scams to be wary of and they certainly make for depressing reading.

The first warning is about Facebook apps and or links that promise to share Valentine's Day 'insights'; for example a link that says '12 things a girl wishes a guy knew'. The risk of clicking on links like this is that they can flood a Facebook wall with posts and also irritate friends by posting to them as well.

The same is true of apps that promise to reveal the existence of a secret admirer. Apps like this, once installed, will let the scammer automatically post unwanted and potentially dangerous messages on Facebook.

Bitdefender also believe that Valentine's Day will see new versions of "well-known Facebook scams" crop-up on the site. The well known 'see who viewed your profile' scam could, according to the security company, become ‘My ex is the top stalker on my profile. See who stalks your profile too', or another similar variant.

Once again, these rogue applications will post unwanted and fake posts on victim's Facebook walls and also send posts to their friends.

George Petre of BitDefender said: "Every year, millions of users follow all sorts of suspicious links in the hope of finding ‘the one.' Social networks are there to encourage bonding and the exchange of information, but users should also be aware of the traps they may fall in within these environments."

Depressing and somewhat nasty as it might all sound, it is worth being aware of these sorts of scams and the ways in which they can be changed to suit any special occasion. How romantic...

Flickr image courtesy of 'contemplicity'