MP's Facebook Has Been Hack Attacked

VIP LOUNGE

CLOUD LOGIN

You are here: News > News > MP's Facebook Has Been Hack Attacked

» IT Security NEWS

» 02 June 2009

MP's Facebook Has Been Hack Attacked

A Member of the British Parliament has recently confessed that his Facebook account was assaulted by hackers. MP Michael Fabricant mentioned a week ago that his account was invaded, exploited, and used to spam over 1,500 contacts on the MP's extensive friends list.

The 58 year old spoke of his torment in a post on his personal website last week. His Facebook profile was eventually deleted after his account had already sent quite a lot of spam to his many contacts. According to the MP, a message was delivered to his account, and it led him to a phishing website. The pilfered account details were then used to capture his account and use it to spam and hijack other user accounts as well.

The details of the cyber assault are quite similar to the ones found on Facebook in recent days. Targets of those assaults were directed to an outside phishing site that tried to reproduce the Facebook page for user logins and procure account information from there on end for spamming operations.

The malicious messages typically said, "Look at this!" and redirected users to a page full of malware. The not-so-tech-savvy parliament member admitted that he was devastated by the event and that this was the first time he had ever been hacked. He then helplessly apologized to his friends list for his own naiveté.

He also warned his Facebook contacts that if ever they acquire a message from his account called "Look at this!" they should not open it. He had made the mistake of falling victim to the message's malicious content, and he said that what had happened to him must serve as a lesson to others. He also believes that he is currently "outlawed from cyberspace" and is "unable to communicate" with his so-called "cyber friends".

Security observers at Sophos believe that the symptoms found in this week's hack attacks fit the pattern of the phishing attacks that's been doing the rounds for the last few weeks. Moreover, Fabricant isn't the only celebrity victimized by virtual hijackers. In fact, just a few months back, a prankster was able to invade numerous Twitter accounts of famous celebrities and used them to post embarrassing tweets.