How to Spot Scams on Reddit

Do you know what types of scams and other fakery you should look out for when using a platform that once billed itself as “the front page of the Internet”?

As the world’s 18th most visited website and 7th most frequented social network, Reddit also holds great allure for cybercriminals. ESET’s cybersecurity expert looked at the most common scams in detail in this blogpost. Here are the main topics:

Phishing

Phishing is generally one of the most prevalent types of cyberattacks. Typically, it takes the form of an email or text message that poses as a legitimate request for your login credentials, credit card information or other personal data.

Spearphishing

This targeted and more sophisticated version of phishing relies on messages that are specially tailored for one person or a group of people, such as employees of a company. Active Redditors who reveal too much about their lives in subreddits or even on other sites may be particularly susceptible to this attack.

Fake subreddits

Reddit’s core feature is its ability to let people create their own discussion spaces known as “subreddits”, which are then overseen by moderators. Scammers always look for ways to exploit this, using bots that spawn new subreddits where basically everything is fake – moderators, subredditors and posts lifted from legitimate sources.

Charity scams

Some Reddit forums are dedicated to charitable causes. Unfortunately, they may also become breeding grounds for scams as the subreddits attract fraudsters who pose as legitimate charity services and prey on the empathy of kind-hearted people.

Scamming people in need
Some scams also involve fraudsters trying to steal money even from people who don’t have much of it and are asking for help.

Crypto scams

Reddit is also popular among the cryptocurrency community, catering to people who follow the latest trends in the crypto arena and seek advice on trading crypto.

Spam and upvoting rings

Spamming is a serious issue on Reddit, one that is exacerbated by well-organized groups that abuse the site’s voting system, create fabricated and possibly harmful content and then promote it on Reddit with the help of fake accounts.

Karma farming

Reddit relies on a karma system to distinguish between genuine and fraudulent accounts, but scammers have learned how to bypass it. They set up accounts copy and paste older legitimate content from Reddit, boosting their own karma score and posing as legitimate users.

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