Privacy, Security & Virus Information

Facebook Under Attack!

Computer hackers have once again launched an attack on social networking giant Facebook, sending a massive deluge of spam e-mails to the four hundred million Facebook account holders. The purpose of this latest cyber attack is the fool the more gullible of Facebook's account holder into revealing their current passwords and from there on in, the gateway is open to gathering more juicy information on the computer owner or owner's account details.

According to industry security leaders, McAfee anyone opening the emails will find a simple message stating that their Facebook passwords have been reset.

If anyone foolish or not sufficiently alert that opens the attachment , all hell will break loose, and not one but several types of malware will open up, including one capable of drilling through a computer's Firewall and stealing any passwords.

This "old fashioned" method of attack on Facebook users is a new attempt by hackers to breach their defences, with most attacks coming directly through the company's own internal email system. The way the e-mail was worded might indicate a certain lack of sophistication from the hackers, something that could not be said about the large artillery of malware enclosed in the attachment.

Facebook's security and public relations departments seemed reluctant to comment on the specific case, pointing only to a status update that they had posted on their web site in Wednesday of last week, that warned their users about the spoofed email as well as advising users to delete the email as welling as warning their network friends.

McAfee's director of malware research and communications, Dave Marcus, pointed out that that the hackers may well have sent out tens of millions of spam across Europe, the United States and Asia since the campaign began less than a week ago, and their estimates are that millions of computers not carrying sufficiently powerful and sophisticate anti-virus software will more than likely been affected. He went on to explain that they reason why hackers seem to have a soft spot for Facebook is because of their massive client base. "With Facebook as your target you potentially have 400 million people that can click on the attachment. If you get 10 percent success, that's 40 million" Marcus explained.

 

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