SPECIAL: “Investments” in Romgaz - thousands of deceptive advertisements promoted through Meta.

Good morning,

323 Facebook pages, using the images of politicians or celebrities from Romania, have paid for over 4,000 fraudulent ads promising quick and easy gains through supposed investments in companies like Romgaz or OMV Petrom.

The deceptive ads had a total of over 50 million views in August 2023. The Facebook pages are linked to websites that clone the interface of portals like Digi24, Capital, Mediafax, or Romania TV.

Ovidiu has prepared an analysis for the #175th Edition which details this phishing network that uses the advertising platform of Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, for its propagation. Phishing is a type of attack commonly used to steal users' personal data, including financial information such as credit card numbers.

What happened?

Beginning with August 2023, Meta introduced an advertising archive for all ads shown to EU users, following the implementation of the Digital Services Act, as previously discussed in Edition #173. This archive is accessib…