This Facebook message is not from your friend
Facebook users were in for a rude shock on Monday, when they fell prey to a cyber attack. Worldwide experts suspect that the spam attack was launched to affect maximum number of users possible via people’s friends list.
Facebook users were in for a rude shock on Monday, when they fell prey to a cyber attack. Worldwide experts suspect that the spam attack was launched to affect maximum number of users possible via people’s friends list.
Users received wall posts from their friends with an attached Youtube video link. This was accompanied by comments like “hey XYZ (persons name) how come I see you in this video”, “Wat are you doing in this video”, “please get yourself untagged from this video” or “you look so stupid in this video”.
On clicking the link, users found that they were unable to check the video. Instead, the link was posted on their friend’s walls. By Monday evening the spam had propagated to all the active and inactive users on the site.
Vinoo Thomas from Mc Afee labs said, “Cyber criminals use major events like the Hurricane Katrina, the tsunami in Japan and the Osama killing to launch cyber attacks.”
Another major spam attack that was observed on Facebook went under the tag of ‘check who is viewing your profile’ which included a javascript text in the browser. “The user is not only infected but the post would go to everyone on his address book. His account would now be under control of the cyber criminals who could misuse it in future,” said a web expert. The current spam, experts said is using a similar method to trap users.
The Facebook team is yet to fix the spam. Experts say the only way to prevent being affected further is to avoid clicking on any such unknown posts and links on the account.