Despite what you may have seen on Facebook, Charlie Sheen is not dead, but doing just fine, thanks (well, bar the sacking from Two and a half Men), an announcement like this is actually a new click-jacking scam.
Different versions of this scam will offer access to “exclusive videos” or may be marked as “Breaking News”, but if you’re unlucky enough to fall for this scam, you’ll go to a page that looks like a YouTube video; but beware, clicking anywhere on the screen will trigger a click-jacking attack that will result in your Facebook user profile posting a bait message.
If you’re unsure if you may have fallen for this, check your news feed and delete any messages that you may find there that you definitely didn’t send.
Clicking on the “Play” button of the bogus video will offer to let you customise your Facebook page in return for filling out a survey, in which you’ll be asked to provide your mobile telephone number. If you’ve done this in error, check with your provider that you haven’t been charged with unauthorised charges.
As usual, care and attention needs to be paid to such “news” announcements, and “special offers”, especially when they come to you via social media sites, Facebook and Twitter in particular, which seem to be the target of the scammers right now.
Always treat links sent to you as suspect until you know more. Even if they come to you from trusted sources: their account may have been hacked. If in doubt, don’t click, you simply can’t get safer than not being caught out.
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