Beware! The Phishing Scam on Facebook is back!

Facebook users are being attacked yet again. Hackers launched their latest phishing drive yesterday and successfully gathered a number of passwords from different people from its 200 million user base. The site fought against a similar phishing scam a couple of weeks ago.

Hackers managed to break into the accounts of many Facebook members and sent emails to the user’s friends list recommending them to click on links to fake websites.

The Fake Facebook Website

1. These fake websites were designed to look like the Facebook home page.
2. The victims were asked to login to the fake site, that actually took them to the malicious site controlled by the hackers
3. The result – users unknowingly gave away their passwords.
4. The fake domains include:
   • www.151.im
   • www.121.im
   • www.123.im

Last year, hackers spread a malicious virus called Koobface. This was sent to the user as a link in an email that looked as if it had been sent by a friend on Facebook. When the user clicked on the link, the virus was downloaded on the user’s computer.

The Motive

The main motive for such attacks has been identified mainly as:

1. Identify theft
2. To spread spam hawking fake pharmaceuticals and other goods to Facebook members

Damage Control

Barry Schnitt, Facebook’s spokesman said that the site was in the process of cleaning up damage from the attack. Facebook was blocking compromised accounts, however, he did not say how many accounts had been compromised.
Facebook has deleted all references to the fake domains that have been identified.

Careful!

So please be extra careful. Make sure you go to the main Facebook Homepage to login to your account. It is very important that we remember NOT TO log into a page that claims to be “Facebook” unless the URL is www.facebook.com.