Security Alert: Account Phishers Target Facebook July 30, 2008
Posted by Andrew Wee in : facebook , trackbackTill now, the Facebook social network has been an overall pleasant user experience for most users, especially if they’ve come over from the social spamming barrage common on MySpace.
Aside from being hit with 100 friend add requests from strangers and another 500 application invites, Facebook is a manageable social platform, especially since their moderation filters block out users who sent out a large volume of private messages and the number of friend add requests are capped each day. (Although it’s common to see innocents get caught in the crossfire).
So it was a pretty rare occurrence to see this on a friend’s wall (the defacto “bulletin board” for facebook users to send and receive public messages).
Given that most accounts have to go through some level of verification and you have to manually add friends (who then can post messages on your wall), I was curious to see what the message was about.
So heading over to the blogspot page, I saw:
Which is a little weird to see a Facebook login page on a blogspot domain?
Not really, until you see that the blogspot page does a URL redirect to a third party domain.
I would assume that entering your Facebook login details will parse your login name and password into a third party database (high probability that they will not have good intentions for your account).
So what mayhem can someone wreak with your hijacked account?
If you’re running Facebook ads, they could possibly run advertising on your dime.
They could also go on to spam marketing messages on other users walls.
If left unchecked, this could seriously degrade the quality of the Facebook network.
I doubt that there will be much damage done, given that Zuckerberg’s admin team keeps a tight rein on the walled gardens of Facebook.
However, losing access to your network of friends and contacts can have incur quite a bit of time to rebuild your network. Worst still, it could negatively affect any personal or business relationships you might have with your friends.
If anything, I’d check the address bar to verify domains before keying in account login information.
Forewarned is forearmed.
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Thanks, Andrew for this bit of information. I use FaceBook for social marketing my safety and security products so I am very concerned about the safety and security of my own FaceBook account.
My reputation with my “friends” is very important to me as well as my business. Thanks to you, I will be very careful about entering my account information if redirected to do so.
Thank you, Andrew, for this helpful bit of information. Since FaceBook is the place where I social market my safety and security web site, I am very concerned about the safety and security of my own profile.
Building trust and credibility with my “friends” is extremely important to me and the people whose safety I have a passion to enhance. I will be more careful with my log in information now, based on this article.
Well done Andrew and thank you for bringing this to useful information to users attention. I will be even more careful in future when using Facebook and other sites.
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Security Alert!
Zynga Poker sent you an email regarding possible unauthorized access to your Facebook and Zynga Poker account. We recommend changing your Facebook password immediately.
Please check your email and carefully follow the instructions to regain access to your account.
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