First, we had fake online Canadian pharmacies, and then fake diet supplements. Now, we have fake brain enhancers.
click to enlarge
Stephen Hawking Predicts, “This Pill Will Change Humanity” Stephen Hawking credits his ability to function and maintained [sic] focused [sic] on such a high level to a certain set of “smart drugs” that enhance cognitive brain function and neural connectivity, while strengthening the prefrontal cortex and boosting memory and recall. In an interview with Anderson Cooper, Stephen Hawking said that his brain is sharper than ever, more clear and focused and he credits a large part to using InteliGEN. Hawking went on to add “The brain is like a muscle, you got to work it out and use supplements just like body builders use, but for your brain, and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing to enhance my mental capabilities”. Everyone has taken this, from athletes like Tom Brady to musicians like Kanye West have nothing but praise for the brain booster, which doubles IQ, skyrockets energy levels and connects areas of the brain not previously connected. InteliGEN works so well for these guys, we had to ask…Is it safe?
Above is a bird’s-eye-view shot of the fake Forbes article that we encountered recently with its partial content excerpt. We came across this article after receiving a spam message from our honeypots, containing a Baidu URL that redirects to armasphoto[DOT]ru, then redirects for the second time to a random domain hosting the said fake Forbes article.
Scams of this nature don’t only arrive via email. They may also be shared via social networking platforms, chat sessions, public comments on forums, and blog posts, and (if legitimate websites aren’t careful) sometimes they’re inadvertently shared via ads on sites, especially if user browsing is done via mobile devices.
Once users click any of the multiple text links on the fake news page, they are redirected to a page about InteliGEN, the said “smart drug” in question. Below is a snapshot of one of its several purported official websites:
click to enlarge
The earliest account about the fake news stories featuring InteliGEN was in August of this year; however, according to an independent blog, a string of fake brain enhancers has been on the net months earlier. Below is a list of these “brands” the said blog has accumulated:
- Addium
- Alpha ZXT
- Brainfire
- BrainPlus IQ
- BrainStorm (Elite)
- Cogniq
- Geniux
- Intellux
- Neurocell
- Synagen
For those who want to read more about InteliGEN and its brain enhancement claims, Snopes has written this article back in September of this year.
If you encounter the above fake Forbes story via email, social media, or anywhere else on the Web, simply close that browser tab and avoid clicking the links on it. And for those who regularly surf the Web on their mobile devices, it would help if you disable JavaScript on your browsers to minimize unwelcomed redirects from sites that may be unaware that their visitors are being redirected to fake or scam pages.
Jovi Umawing
Confirmed it is spreading through email. Not yet sure how are the computers infected, however, it sends email to contact lists through personal email. The link returns once 302 and 303 to this fake site. It contains a Javascript, i.e. loading an unknown site.
Thanks for that!
received my copy via Skype message
I delete those because they are garbage and I have no interest.
I clicked on a link in an email for what I thought was for a legitimate VFW website fundraising campaign. It even allowed memorializing the contribution by listing a veteran’s name. I listed my mother’s name because she died recently and she was a veteran. That was a real slap in the face.
The real VFW was having the same campaign. Not long after I made a contribution, my bank account was hacked. I reported it to the real VFW, but they didn’t seem to give a ****. I will not be renewing with them this year and I will not contribute to anyone else. I blame the hackers for that.