Malware which aims to steal Facebook login credentials and also aggressively displays pop-up adverts has been uncovered targeting Android users via the Google Play store -- and may have been downloaded by hundreds of thousands of unwitting victims.
Dubbed GhostTeam after strings in the code by the analysts at security company Trend Micro which uncovered it, the malware was first published in April 2017 and was disguised in the official Android marketplace as utility apps, performance boosters, and social media video downloaders.
Read moreFacebook acknowledged on Friday that too much social media can be bad for you, a remarkable admission as the 2-billion member online service battles mounting criticism about its impact on society.
In a blog post published on Friday, Facebook addressed a "hard question": "Is spending time on social media bad for us?" In it, the social networking firm cites academic research indicating that in certain instances using Facebook can have a negative effect on people's moods, and that heavier users of the site can have worse mental health.
Read moreNew features in software always bring bugs. Still, some are worse than others. When Facebook rolled out its new polling feature earlier this month, which allows people to post votable questions on anything from what to have for dinner to what dress to wear at a prom dance, it also inadvertently opened the door for hackers to delete any picture on the network.
Researcher discovered this bug in early November. When someone created a poll, he found, it would send a request to Facebook servers that included a unique ID for the picture or GIF included. At that point, he could replace that ID with the ID of any other picture on the network, even ones other people had uploaded.
Read moreFacebook could be listening in on people’s conversations all of the time, an expert has claimed. The app might be using people’s phones to gather data on what they are talking about, it has been claimed.
Facebook says that its app does listen to what’s happening around it, but only as a way of seeing what people are listening to or watching and suggesting that they post about it. The feature has been available for a couple of years, but recent warnings from Kelli Burns, mass communication professor at the University of South Florida, have drawn attention to it. Professor Burns has said that the tool appears to be using the audio it gathers not simply to help out users.
Read moreIf you get a message from a Facebook Friend telling you they urgently need your help accessing their account — pause, because someone’s trying to use Facebook security against you.
Experts yesterday revealed details of the phishing scam that has apparently claimed a few victims recently. It’s basically an attempt to con you into handing over your account codes to someone you think you can trust. The attack is initiated by someone who has already taken over the account of a friend. They send you an urgent message claiming to need help getting back into their account, and to check your email for a recovery code.
Read moreFacebook has been fined 1.2 million euros ($1.4 million) for allegedly collecting personal information from users in Spain that could then be used for advertising, the national data protection watchdog said.
The fine stemmed from an investigation into the social network company conducted alongside similar probes in Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands. The 1.2 million euro fine is a fraction of Facebook’s quarterly revenue of about $8 billion and stock market capitalization of around $435 billion. AEPD said it found three cases in which Facebook had collected details of its millions of Spanish users without informing them how such information would be used.
Read moreIf you came across any Facebook message with a video link sent by anyone, even your friend — just don’t click on it. Security researchers at Kaspersky Lab have spotted an ongoing cross-platform campaign on Facebook Messenger, where users receive a video link that redirects them to a fake website, luring them to install malicious software.
Although it is still unclear how the malware spreads, researchers believe spammers are using compromised accounts, hijacked browsers, or clickjacking techniques to spread the malicious link. The attackers make use of social engineering to trick users into clicking the video link.
Read moreRussian intelligence agents attempted to spy on President Emmanuel Macron's election campaign earlier this year by creating phony Facebook personas.
About two dozen Facebook accounts were created to conduct surveillance on Macron campaign officials and others close to the centrist former financier as he sought to defeat far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen and other opponents in the two-round election, the sources said. Macron won in a landslide in May. Facebook said in April it had taken action against fake accounts that were spreading misinformation about the French election. But the effort to infiltrate the social networks of Macron officials has not previously been reported.
Read moreResearchers at PhishLabs recently spotted a trend emerging in malicious websites presented to customers: mobile-focused phishing attacks that attempt to conceal the true domain they were served from by padding the subdomain address with enough hyphens to push the actual source of the page outside the address box on mobile browsers.
"The tactic we're seeing is a tactic for phishing specifically mobile devices," said Crane Hassold, a senior security threat researcher at PhishLabs’ Research. Hassold called the tactic "URL padding," the front-loading of the Web address of a malicious webpage with the address of a legitimate website.
Read moreGermany's consumer watchdogs have made good on their legal threat against Facebook's WhatsApp, suing the messaging giant over the user data it transmits to its social-networking mothership.
The Federation of German Consumer Organisations (VZBV) asked the Berlin county court for an injunction to stop the data-sharing, and to ensure that Facebook deletes the data that WhatsApp has already given it. The VZBV accused the companies of abusing users' trust. The move follows Facebook's failure to agree to a cease-and-desist request that the VZBV issued in September last year, a month after Facebook changed WhatsApp's terms to allow the data-sharing.
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