Sponsored Ad Fraud: Mystery Box Scams Flood Social Media

**Bitdefender Labs** observed a large-scale social-media "mystery box" scam that leverages paid Facebook ads and mobile-only websites to lure victims into providing personal and payment details, then enrolls them in recurring subscription charges; attackers use fake comments, device-based page gating (user-agent checks), and targeted advertising across multiple countries, with reported ad reach exceeding 1.5 million in Romania and hundreds of thousands elsewhere.