Home > Posts > Redirecting twiitter into a YouTube-styled reward lure scheme

Redirecting twiitter into a YouTube-styled reward lure scheme

While I was trying to visit twitter I suddenly was faced with this page, which although very well designed looked immediately suspicious to me, first of all because of the redirects I noticed happening at the address bar and also because the landing URL was using the word “rewardz”.

Moreover the page seems to be mimicing (or blatantly copying) YouTube’s design (esp. the red/white “You” which might also be a trademark of YouTube [is it?]):

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I right clicked the back button in Internet Explorer 9 and found out that I had mistyped twitter.com into twiitter.com which led me to secredir.com and redirected me to video-rewardz.com passing it as parameter on the URL the twiitter.com so that they can track which typos were more successful in leading you there.

So I followed the links (although not suggested to do so on totally unknown websites you get redirected to, especially if you don’t have all security updates installed on your system) to record what it tries to “sell” you:

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Then you see a progress dialog and you land into this page (suggesting they don’t have any more Macbook Air to make you think that others have been trusting them and “winning”):

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And then you get to the truth (with small letters at the bottom). You’re supposed to give your mobile phone number and then get signed up for a costly pay-per-message subscription for ringtones or whatever mobile media assets for a chance to win (yeah, sure).

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  1. Mohammad
    2012/01/10 at 14:22

    I’ve seen this website while I was opening fa.wikipedia.org too!

    • Mohammad
      2012/01/10 at 14:25

      I checked my browser. I’ve written fa.wikipdia.org! instead of fa.wikipedia

    • 2012/01/10 at 18:06

      I noticed your e-mail was @gmial.com (probably you meant to write gmail.com?)
      It goes to a WordPress site (judging from the icon) that has a similar campaign faking a bit Gmail’s font and capital G letter (not with much success I think)

      • 2012/01/10 at 18:07

        Also in this case too you see the “MacBook Air” as having no more items available
        #LOL

  1. 2012/01/10 at 18:25

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