SCAM ADS PROMOTED on Facebook are directing Irish users to malware websites by teasing a fake scandal involving journalist Fintan O’Toole – the latest in a long list of national celebrities featured who have featured in similar hoax stories.

“Fintan O’Toole didn’t know he had a microphone,” one such ad reads. “We said goodbye to him forever.”

The image on social media, which is made to look like an Irish Times headline, continues “It was a sad day for the whole Irish” [sic].

Another ad posted by the same account — which appears to be a Brazilian tourism company — features a fake screenshot from a Facebook Messenger conversation between O’Toole and RTÉ presenter Katie Hannon.

“On air, Fintan O’Toole overdid it and spoke too frankly,” the ad reads. “The presenter condemned the actions as irresponsible and warned that such statements could undermine stability in Ireland.” 

Both of these ads are hoaxes, and were confirmed as such by RTÉ’s Katie Hannon.

“The messages are of course not real. Fintan O’Toole has never been on my show,” she told The Journal by email.

The image showing an apparent headline from the Irish Times is also a hoax: there is no record of the newspaper posting such a headline, nor is it likely that they would phrase a story about one of their own contributors in such a way.

The ads direct users to click forward onto other sites. The preview on one of the ads makes it look as though users are being directed to a page on The Irish Times’ official domain, irishtimes.com.

However, if a user clicks on the ads, they are instead redirected to another URL which leads to a malicious page that causes the download of potentially harmful software.

According to anti-virus company McAfee, the software could “alter the security of a computer or the computer user’s privacy”.

Using Domain research tools URLVoid and Who.Is, the site appears to be run from a Dutch server, though the URL was registered by an American company.

The Meta ad library shows that one of the ads, which was aimed at Irish users aged above 25, was seen by more than 27,750 people (though it is not known how many of these clicked on it).

The Journal has previously debunked hoax ads featuring other well-known Irish figures, such as politicians Leo Varadkar, Micheál Martin, Eamon Ryan and Enda Kenny; television presenters such as Anne Doyle, Tommy Tiernan, Bláthnaid Ní Chofaigh, Maura Derrane, Patrick Kielty, Tommy Bowe, Tadhg Enright, Ryan Tubridy, Colette Fitzpatrick, Ciara Doherty, Brian Dowling, and Alan Hughes; as well as businessman Michael O’Leary.

Often, these scams try to convince people to “invest” in cryptocurrency schemes. 

Globally, Elon Musk is believed to be the person most likely to appear in such deceptive scam ads.

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