An official British body has just launched a mobile app that will help users of social networks to detect fake profiles on them and delete them from their contacts. The app is called «Think before you link»that is, “Think before linking”, and was born so that citizens learn to locate fraudulent profiles dedicated to fraud or information theft.
An app developed by a British public body seeks to provide social network users with tools to identify and report fake profiles
The app has been promoted by the National Infrastructure Protection Center. The project was born after MI5 warned that over 10,000 people in the UK had been scammed, or they had personal information stolen, through false profiles on LinkedIn and Facebook throughout 2021. According to the secret service, these false profiles are generated “on an industrial scale” and can pose a threat to the cyber security of the country.
Many of these scams were directed against officials, active or retired, who were offered a consulting job through a link. For MI5, it’s clearly about an espionage attempt by cybercriminal groups, nationals or foreigners, who aspire to obtain state information for criminal purposes. But not only that, because workers from large technology companies, journalists and university professors have also received these offers.
The app has been developed by a multidisciplinary team. In addition to software programmers, MI5 agents and behavioral scientists have participated in its creation.
“It is crucial that we do everything in our power to defend ourselves and our information,” said Steve Barclay, the head of cybersecurity in the United Kingdom during the presentation of the app.
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