Bin Laden spam floods Facebook

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A wave of spam has flooded Facebook over the past week. Hackers are developing more sophisticated ploys to drill through the social network's security system, such as by preying on peoples ' curiosity to see photos of the dead Osama bin Laden.Analysts and security experts say the recent wave shows that Facebook 's rapid growth and more than 500m active users have made it the top target for spammers looking for passwords and financial details. "Whenever you have a forum or technology or website that has as large a critical mass of users as Facebook, inevitably they 'll be targeted and exploited," said Hiep Dang, a security analyst with McAfee Labs. "Facebook is really a conduit that bad guys use to make you click on links to get infected with malware. " Spam is an unsolicited message that typically infects the user 's computer with a virus allowing hackers to track keystrokes and inspect stored cookies for account passwords and credit card information, Mr Dang said. Within 24 hours of the announcement that Osama bin Laden had been killed a week ago, links began appearing on Facebook profiles, luring people to click to see fake photos or videos of the dead founder of the al-Qaeda terror network. At the same time, other more established ploys to trick even savvy Facebook users picked up momentum. The spam degrades the quality of the Facebook experience, said Ray Valdes, an analyst with Gartner, a technology research firm. "If this continues, there will be attrition," he said, adding that Facebook was likely to fix the problem within a week. But because the network operates on an open platform and is always evolving, "they will always have new anomalies, new bugs and new security holes ". One established spam application offers to show users which of their friends have looked at their profile recently. Another promises "cutting-edge technology" to show users what their face will look like when they are 65. If a user clicks on the link, a new message is generated to each of the user's friends, and arrives with the user 's name, profile picture, and a casual note: "haha, mine is hilarious!! check yours out :)". Facebook said its engineers were working hard to solve the problem. "Not only have enforcement mechanisms been pursued to shut down the malicious pages and fake accounts," it said, "but also Facebook has been putting affected users through educational checkpoints to help curb the spread of the attacks." The latest flurry of spam has prompted complaints from Facebook users – on Facebook: "Ack! Facebook is exploding with Osama bin Laden spam."

A wave of spam has flooded Facebook over the past week. Hackers are developing more sophisticated ploys to drill through the social network's security system, such as by preying on peoples ' curiosity to see photos of the dead Osama bin Laden.Analysts and security experts say the recent wave shows that Facebook 's rapid growth and more than 500m active users have made it the top target for spammers looking for passwords and financial details. "Whenever you have a forum or technology or website that has as large a critical mass of users as Facebook, inevitably they 'll be targeted and exploited," said Hiep Dang, a security analyst with McAfee Labs. "Facebook is really a conduit that bad guys use to make you click on links to get infected with malware. " Spam is an unsolicited message that typically infects the user 's computer with a virus allowing hackers to track keystrokes and inspect stored cookies for account passwords and credit card information, Mr Dang said. Within 24 hours of the announcement that Osama bin Laden had been killed a week ago, links began appearing on Facebook profiles, luring people to click to see fake photos or videos of the dead founder of the al-Qaeda terror network. At the same time, other more established ploys to trick even savvy Facebook users picked up momentum. The spam degrades the quality of the Facebook experience, said Ray Valdes, an analyst with Gartner, a technology research firm. "If this continues, there will be attrition," he said, adding that Facebook was likely to fix the problem within a week. But because the network operates on an open platform and is always evolving, "they will always have new anomalies, new bugs and new security holes ". One established spam application offers to show users which of their friends have looked at their profile recently. Another promises "cutting-edge technology" to show users what their face will look like when they are 65. If a user clicks on the link, a new message is generated to each of the user's friends, and arrives with the user 's name, profile picture, and a casual note: "haha, mine is hilarious!! check yours out :)". Facebook said its engineers were working hard to solve the problem. "Not only have enforcement mechanisms been pursued to shut down the malicious pages and fake accounts," it said, "but also Facebook has been putting affected users through educational checkpoints to help curb the spread of the attacks." The latest flurry of spam has prompted complaints from Facebook users – on Facebook: "Ack! Facebook is exploding with Osama bin Laden spam."