By REBECCA RUTHERFORD
Los Alamos
For the Los Alamos Daily Post

Losing a loved one is hard, but it’s even harder when scammers target friends and family left behind. Scammers have been offering fake streaming services for Facebook events for some time, and have now begun to target funeral and memorial event groups on Facebook.

Brian Krebs, renowned cyber-researcher, recently uncovered this disturbing scam, you can read the article here on his website.

How does the scam work? After a loved one dies, many people might create a Facebook group to help organize memories of the loved one, simplify funeral planning, etc. These might be made public to make it easier for friends and family to see the details of the planned memorial services, etc.

Unfortunately, this makes it easy pickings for scammers. If everything is public, it’s easy to create a spoofed page and offer streaming services, and even a chance to donate money, and steal images and info from the legitimate Facebook group. They can also steal the guest list and send fake invites to everyone in the Facebook group. Even if the group isn’t public, they can just request to be added and then steal the info they need to create a fake group.

Example of fake live stream funeral group from Krebsonsecurity.com

All of the fake groups offer links to sketchy streaming services that require credit card payment, or request “donations” in the loved ones name. In addition to stealing money from the deceased friends and family, these fake sites might also cause them to miss seeing the actual memorial service live stream.

Image from Krebsonsecurity.com article showing example landing page

This scam doesn’t just target funerals, it can target any advertised event. According to Krebs, the police department in Plympton, Massachusetts, the event group was targeted, and split into two groups, one offering streaming through espnstreamlive[.]co or skysports[.]live.

A few signs you have been misdirected to a scam event group, whether for a funeral or community event:

• The scam group will have been formed after the real group, Facebook usually gives info on when the group was formed in the page’s “About” info.
• The scam group will likely have less members.
• A legitimate funeral or other friends/family/community event is unlikely to stream through any major streaming service (ESPN, moviestreaming, etc.) and definitely will not ask for a credit card to enter the event.
• Some of the events seem to use two domain names that have been mashed together, another sign that something is amiss. Example: watchliveon24[.]com.playehq4ks[.]com

Who is behind these scams? According to preliminary research by Krebs, the scammers are based in India. This isn’t surprising given the huge number of scammers that operate out of India.

Just another scam to watch out for, and be aware that nothing is sacred to scammers, not even death. Stay aware, trust no one, and be safe online!

Editor’s note: Rebecca Rutherford works in information technology at Los Alamos National Laboratory.