Facebook Spam Attack

…And thanks to Facebook — the kids have seen a massive load of free porn pictures on the site that is supposed to be child-friendly. Insidefacebook.com says that 21% of Facebook members around the world are aged 13-17 years old! These past days, my Facebook wall was not spared at all with the flooding of pornographic posts — appearing one after the other.

According to Graham Cluley, a consultant with Web security firm Sophos, said that “explicit and violent” images included not just hardcore porn but photoshopped images of celebrities, including teen pop star Justin Bieber, in sexual positions; “extreme violence;” and at least one image of an abused dog. Oh, was there a naked grandma as well?

Labeling them as spams took time as I had to do it one by one. I had the feeling that friends on my list were clicking the links from their walls and unknowing to them, the links with offensive content will be shared to their friends’ walls. With friends numbering to over 2000, imagine how many times I have to delete each popping porn-and-gore spam.

According to USA Today:

At the center of these sort of attacks is a technique called clickjacking. These fake links pose as regular Facebook posts, often coming from friends we would normally trust to only post good links. When clicked, a JavaScript command is executed, causing a user’s computer to perform a program that spreads the link even farther.

These posts can do more than spread on Facebook. They often come armed with malware, which is dropped on the user’s computer when clicked.

Malware can often perform other dangerous tasks on our computers such as gaining access to our personal information and passwords.

Who perpetrated the attack? Facebook did not comment on the people responsible for it.

Just this week, posts around Facebook have been circulated that the Filipinos were behind the spam links and pornographic materials.

Mark Zuckerberg – CEO of Facebook released an online statement regarding the spreading porn pics and spams. Released November 16, 2011 9PM Pacific Time Zone.

The porn attacks originated in the Philippines and are being published by Filipinos all over Facebook, our experts here at Facebook are doing everything they can to stop it from spreading any further (outside the Philippines) and to eliminate the porn and spam threat completely which have been causing other Facebook users ‘a hard time’. Filipinos should also be vigilant and report any spam links and pornographic materials. 41% of Facebook members around the world are aged 12-17 years old, we cannot be exposed to this kinds of things through Facebook. If this continues and more spams keep being posted, we will have no choice but to ban Philippine users from using Facebook. We at Facebook will not tolerate outlandish behavior and indecency.

Please be reminded that this has to stop, Filipinos!

But this message is a complete hoax. Mark Zuckerberg has made no such statement.

PCWorld reported that Facebook already identified the attackers but they never divulged the name/s.

In a statement released to media outlets, Facebook said that its dedicated enforcement team “has already identified those responsible and is working with our legal team to ensure appropriate consequences follow.”

If indeed the attack originated from the Philippines, I don’t think Mark Zuckerberg will foolishly ban the entire country from using the social network and lose over 23 million Filipino users. The Philippines is at no. 7 in terms of the most number of FB users (23,446,700 as of April 2011) among over 200 countries.

So to those who ever read the hoax message, please do not repost it. The problem is, there are so many ignorant (sorry for the word) Filipinos who don’t do a quick search first and instead easily reposting the message on their walls. This of course could lead to alarm and unfair blame.

Please DO NOT REPOST THE FAKE MESSAGE! Instead, post how your friends could get rid of the spams.

I don’t think Facebook has completely eliminated the issue. I just saw one naked lady on my FB wall this morning.

If in case you get the porno pictures, click the arrow to the right of the post and choose “report story or spam.” Let Facebook know about it.

And one last thing, never ever click a link or a picture when in doubt — even if it comes from a friend. If you can’t help it, private message your friend first and clarify the validity of the link or picture. It is better to be safe than be a sorry victim of a spam.