It is time for another Facebook scam: Jayden K Smith is after you!

The friend request from Jayden K. Smith

If you haven’t noticed a post from some of your Facebook friends warning not to accept a person called “Jayden K. Smith,” you might be wondering who is the guy that he already became notorious among the Facebook folk. Let us dispel a veil of mystery from this notorious “celebrity.”

If we believe the description of him spread on Facebook, he is an intimidating hacker^[1]:

“Please tell all the contacts in your Messenger list, not to accept Jayden K Smith friendship request. He is a hacker and has the system connected to your Facebook account. If one of your contacts accepts it, you will also be hacked, so make sure that all your friends know it.”

This is the message you are likely to get personally or see posted by some of the friends. Let us assure that this message is nothing more than an ordinary Facebook scam.

Ironically, the main culprit of the current Facebook scam is not the very Jaden K. Smith who might be just an ordinary prankster or a fan of a real Jayden Smith, son of Will Smith. He or, more specifically, “they” are the community of Facebook.

Other renown “hackers”

Unlike real cases when some of Facebook users accounts were really hacked, and they unwillingly passed the computer worm to their friends^[2], this time there was more smoke than fire.

It is useful to note that simply accepting a friend request will not result in your hacked account. Even if you happen to befriend a bot instead of an actual human, there is still a low probability for perpetrators to get a hold of your account unless you click on a shady link, open a picture or download a file.

Furthermore, Jayden K. Smith is not the only notorious “hacker” known in the Facebook scam history. There were already Maggie from Sweden, Bobby Roberts, Linda Smith, SmartGRRL15, Christopher Butterfield and many more^[3]. As you may notice some of the names are just obvious pranks.

However, the problem is that many netizens take the role of a victim willingly. Sadly, it is not just about Facebook, but the high number of gullible users explains why the ransomware world is booming.

Some of the most destructive threats such as Cerber or Locky are still alive because users carelessly open the corrupted attachments or pass such scams.

Someone might blame such credulity on the age of social networks and IT technologies, however, retaining rational cautiousness is not only crucial for survival in reality but in the virtual space as well.