The Hindu Business Line : Phishing attacks on Facebook users

Coimbatore, Nov. 2 While it is not unusual for hackers to target social networks, they have this time targeted Facebook users with not just one, but two attacks — a phishing scheme and a banking Trojan to steal information and log in credentials.

Trend Micro has found the Facebook phishing attack as part of the global Zeus botnet, delivering about 1,00 phishing messages per minute per domain over about 30 domains.

“It is an attempt to fool Facebook users into downloading malware and submitting personal and financial information. Users receive an e-mail informing them that Facebook is updating its log-in system to make things more secure. The email then urges them to click on what appears to be an update button embedded in the message. Once users click on the link, they are directed to a bogus log-in page with the user name filled in and asking them for their password to allegedly complete the update. Cyber crooks behind the phony Facebook page wait to pounce on the victims’ log-in credentials,” states a Trend Micro release.

According to the security firm, mobile users were also on the hit list of the banking Trojan.

The firm’s researchers had earlier detected a spam targeting the employees of several companies. ‘A number of employees received e-ail notifications purporting to be from their respective companies’ system administrators. These e-mails reminded them to update their systems due to a recent server software upgrade. The link in the e-mails used several sub-domains that resolved to the same IP address. These URLs all served a ZBOT variant to victims’ PCs,’ experts said and cautioned users against clicking on links embedded in e-mails from unidentified people.

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