Facebook 'eliminates most of porn image spam attack'

Facebook said it has rid its site of most of the pornographic and violent images posted as part of a spam attack.

The particular social network blamed a browser vulnerability and also said it was improving it is devices to defend alone against related episodes in the future.

1000s of the particular website's 800 thousand users have got complained regarding the images over latest days.

A source told the particular BBC that Facebook or myspace understood who was responsible : and it also was not an Confidential hacktivist.

The particular firm is understood to be working with it is legitimate department to take action up against the suspected attacker.

Browser exploit
Facebook or myspace said the particular junk mail attack proved helpful using a "self-XSS vulnerability in the browser".

It included: "During this attack, users were tricked directly into pasting and also carrying out destructive javascript in their browser LINK club causing those to unknowingly reveal this attacking articles.

"No customer data or perhaps addresses were affected during this attack. "
The particular firm said it is technical engineers got developed enforcement mechanisms to shut lower destructive web pages and also addresses that make an effort to exploit the particular vulnerability.

It also offered these suggestions to help protect against more episodes:

• Never copy and paste unknown code into the address bar
• Always use an up-to-date browser
• Use the report links on Facebook to flag suspicious behaviour or content on friends' accounts

Strange

Facebook allows children above the age of 13 to be members, and polices a ban against inappropriate images.

However, security experts said it was difficult for the firm to respond to this threat, bearing in mind it exploited a vulnerability in an unnamed web browser rather than the site itself.

They also said that the attack was very unusual because most other scams on the social network are designed to deliver a financial payout.

"This seems to be a purely malicious act. Facebook has a reputation for maintaining a reasonably family-friendly environment," wrote Chester Wisniewski, a senior security advisor at Sophos, on his company's blog.

"Hopefully whichever browser it is that has the flaw will provide a fix ASAP, but as we know most people are slow to apply updates regardless of which browser they use (except Chrome)."

"The flaw being exploited could likely be used against other sites as well if users can be tricked into pasting malicious javascript into the browser."

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