Are We Still Safe in Facebook? FB Help Center was Attacked by Spammers

After suffering a deluge of porn and violent images earlier this month, users of social networking giant Facebook were hit by another spam wave over the weekend, a Facebook enthusiast blog reported.

The "Facebook Privacy and Security" blog posted screenshots of the spam attack, which targeted Facebook's Help Center Community Forum.

"Facebook’s Help Center ... does not deal with users directly, with non-interactive topics based on FAQ’s and site changes being the only Facebook presence.

Users wanting more help are encouraged to post questions in the Community Forum, but the generous Facebook users who provide assistance there have no ability to remove the spammers," it said.

It noted clicking on each topic reveals dozens of posts filled with links, leading allegedly to official video streams of sporting events or movies.

"The spammers suggest clicking on the links will provide free footage, and some posts contain the same link repeated 60-plus times to entice users to click on them," it said.

As of 9:40 a.m. Manila time, the spam messages have yet to be taken down.

"Genuine questions by Facebook users are shunted so far down the line that most are invisible," the blog noted.

The blog suggested that Facebook create a team charged with making sure that the Help Center community forum is safe from spam attacks, so that users with genuine issues can get help.

It also suggested that Facebook create a User Support team to manage the Help Center itself, so that questions can be answered directly by employees equipped to resolve issues efficiently and with expediency. A separate blog entry by computer security firm Sophos hinted the spammers could be taking advantage of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, "when Facebook's security team may be more lightly staffed than normal."

"Certainly it's embarrassing for the social networking website to have one of its own pages hit so significantly by spammers, when it has recently been lauding its achievements in the fight against Facebook spam," it said.

Source: http://ph.news.yahoo.com/