Dwayne Johnson, AKA The Rock, hasn’t died but there’s several different Facebook and social media scams going around this week saying he either died on the set of “Fast & Furious 7” or died during a fall in New Zealand. These are both scams and can carry bogus surveys, rogue Facebook apps, or can carry possibly malware.
The scams have been going on for the past few days, and Johnson has been tweeting the whole time. He didn’t make any mention of a death hoax but posted an Instagram video of him working out in the gym Friday.
On Friday and Saturday, people were tweeting “RIP Dwayne Johnson.” One of the scams reads, “R.I.P. DWAYNE JOHNSON (1972 -2014). He died filming a dangerous stunt for FAST & FURIOUS 7.” Another says, “Actor Dwayne Johnson died while filming a movie in New Zealand early this morning … Preliminary reports from New Zealand Police officials indicate that the actor fell more than 60 feet to his death on the Kauri Cliffs while on-set.”
Scammers likely created these the hoaxes to get web traffic to a particular web page, which is then sold to other scammers, who can use it for more nefarious purposes. One of the pages has surveys that are used to take users’ personal data.
“After sharing as instructed, users will be taken to another page that again supposedly hosts the video. But, users will now be told that they must perform further actions before they can see the video. They may be told that they must fill in one or more surveys, ostensibly to verify their age or show that they are human. Or, they may be asked to install rogue apps that will send out spam and scam messages to all of their friends. In some instances, users may be tricked into adding malicious extensions to their web browsers or downloading malware,” reads a post from Hoax-Slayer.
Celebrity death hoaxes are a common way to spread online scams.
If you’ve downloaded a rogue Facebook app, it’s recommended that you remove it app from your account. You should also “unlike” or delete any post you’ve shared regarding the Johnson death hoax.
To remove the app, log into your Facebook account, and go to your Facebook application settings. This page lists all the applications that you have given access to.
Go below and then click on the “X” on the right side of the app in order to remove it. Some of the fake apps use names like “Fox News,” “Yahoo,” or “YouTube” to trick users.
For some websites, they can also prove to be lucrative if they go viral.
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