Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said on Thursday
that the site was in the process of cleaning up damage from the attack. He said
that Facebook was blocking compromised accounts, but declined to say how many
accounts had been affected.
The hackers got passwords through a phishing
attack, breaking into accounts of some Facebook members, then sending emails to
their friends and urging them to click on links to fake websites.
Those sites
were designed to look like the Facebook home page. The victims were directed to
log back in to the site, but actually logged into one controlled by the hackers,
unwittingly giving away their passwords. The purpose of phishing attacks is
generally identify theft and to spread spam.
The fake domains include www.151.im, www.121.im and www.123.im. Facebook has deleted all references
to those domains.
Schnitt said that Facebook's security team believes the
hackers intended to collect a large number of credentials, then use those
accounts at a later time to send spam selling fake pharmaceuticals and other
goods to Facebook members. The site fought off a similar attack two weeks
ago, he said.
Privately held Facebook and rival social network
MySpace, which is owned by News Corp, require senders of messages within the
network to be members and hide user data from people who do not have accounts.
Because of that, users tend to be far less suspicious of messages they
receive.
Hackers used a phishing attack last year to spread a malicious virus
known as Koobface. It
was downloaded onto Facebook members' PCs when they clicked on a link sent to
them in an email that looked like it had been sent by a friend on
Facebook.
that the site was in the process of cleaning up damage from the attack. He said
that Facebook was blocking compromised accounts, but declined to say how many
accounts had been affected.
The hackers got passwords through a phishing
attack, breaking into accounts of some Facebook members, then sending emails to
their friends and urging them to click on links to fake websites.
Those sites
were designed to look like the Facebook home page. The victims were directed to
log back in to the site, but actually logged into one controlled by the hackers,
unwittingly giving away their passwords. The purpose of phishing attacks is
generally identify theft and to spread spam.
The fake domains include www.151.im, www.121.im and www.123.im. Facebook has deleted all references
to those domains.
Schnitt said that Facebook's security team believes the
hackers intended to collect a large number of credentials, then use those
accounts at a later time to send spam selling fake pharmaceuticals and other
goods to Facebook members. The site fought off a similar attack two weeks
ago, he said.
Privately held Facebook and rival social network
MySpace, which is owned by News Corp, require senders of messages within the
network to be members and hide user data from people who do not have accounts.
Because of that, users tend to be far less suspicious of messages they
receive.
Hackers used a phishing attack last year to spread a malicious virus
known as Koobface. It
was downloaded onto Facebook members' PCs when they clicked on a link sent to
them in an email that looked like it had been sent by a friend on
Facebook.
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