caveman_nige
15th May, 2009, 09:23 AM
Hackers launched an attack on Facebook's 200 million users on Thursday, successfully gathering passwords from some of them in the latest campaign to prey on members of the popular social networking site.
A Facebook spokesman said on Thursday that the site was in the process of cleaning up damage from the attack.
He said Facebook was blocking compromised accounts but declined to say how many accounts had been compromised.
The hackers got passwords through a phishing attack, breaking into accounts of some Facebook members, then sending emails to 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 into the site, but actually logged into the one controlled by the hackers, unwittingly giving away their passwords.
The purpose of such attacks is generally identify theft and to spread spam.
The fake domains include *ww.151.im, *ww.121.im and *ww.123.im. Facebook has deleted all references to those domains.
The spokesman said 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 hawking 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.
Know your ABC.....
A-Z of security
A is for Antivirus
B is for Botnets
C is for CMA
D is for DDoS
E is for Extradition
F is for Federated identity
G is for Google
H is for Hackers
I is for IM
J is for Jaschan(Sven)
K is for Kids
L is for Love Bug
M is for Mircosoft
N is for Neologisms
O is for Orange
P is for Passwords
Q is for Questions
R is for Rootkits
S is for Spyware
T is for Two-factor authentication
U is for USB sticks/devices
V is for Virus variants
W is for wi-fi
X is for OS X
Y is for You
Z is for Zero-day
Source: Facebook fights off another hack attack - Software - Breaking Business and Technology News at silicon.com (http://software.silicon.com/security/0,39024655,39431368,00.htm)
A Facebook spokesman said on Thursday that the site was in the process of cleaning up damage from the attack.
He said Facebook was blocking compromised accounts but declined to say how many accounts had been compromised.
The hackers got passwords through a phishing attack, breaking into accounts of some Facebook members, then sending emails to 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 into the site, but actually logged into the one controlled by the hackers, unwittingly giving away their passwords.
The purpose of such attacks is generally identify theft and to spread spam.
The fake domains include *ww.151.im, *ww.121.im and *ww.123.im. Facebook has deleted all references to those domains.
The spokesman said 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 hawking 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.
Know your ABC.....
A-Z of security
A is for Antivirus
B is for Botnets
C is for CMA
D is for DDoS
E is for Extradition
F is for Federated identity
G is for Google
H is for Hackers
I is for IM
J is for Jaschan(Sven)
K is for Kids
L is for Love Bug
M is for Mircosoft
N is for Neologisms
O is for Orange
P is for Passwords
Q is for Questions
R is for Rootkits
S is for Spyware
T is for Two-factor authentication
U is for USB sticks/devices
V is for Virus variants
W is for wi-fi
X is for OS X
Y is for You
Z is for Zero-day
Source: Facebook fights off another hack attack - Software - Breaking Business and Technology News at silicon.com (http://software.silicon.com/security/0,39024655,39431368,00.htm)