NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Whoops! F.C.C. Chairman Spams Facebook Friends
----- Forwarded message from Dave Farber <dave@farber.net> ----- Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2009 20:21:31 -0500 From: Dave Farber <dave@farber.net> Subject: [IP] Whoops! F.C.C. Chairman Spams Facebook Friends Reply-To: dave@farber.net To: ip <ip@v2.listbox.com> Begin forwarded message: > From: Simon Higgs <simon@higgs.com> > Date: December 31, 2009 7:35:08 PM EST > To: David Farber <dave@farber.net> > Subject: Whoops! F.C.C. Chairman Spams Facebook Friends > > > http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/whoops-fcc-chairman-spams-facebook-friends/ > > December 31, 2009, 3:20 pm > Whoops! F.C.C. Chairman Spams Facebook Friends > By BRAD STONE > > Update | 3:27 p.m. Adding statement from Facebook at the end. > > Facebook scam artists have closed out 2009 by snagging a prominent > victim: Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications > Commission. > > On Friday morning at around 10:30 a.m., Mr. Genachowski sent his > Facebook friends this puzzling message: “Adam got me started making > money with this.” It was followed by a link to a Web page that is no > longer active. The message blitz indicated that Mr. Genachowski’s a > ccount had been taken over by a malicious program that was using it to > send out spam. > > As of Friday afternoon Mr. Genachowski’s Facebook profile was no longer > visible on the site. A Facebook spokesman, Larry Yu, said the company > learned of the problem this morning and suspended the account, as it > routinely does in such cases. An F.C.C. spokeswoman declined to comment. > > The chairman is by no means alone in getting inadvertently embroiled in > social networking scams that can be embarrassing. I wrote about such > scams earlier this month, noting that the humiliation sown by these > attacks is usually just a byproduct of spammer efforts to get people to > click on various links. > > It’s not clear how Mr. Genachowski’s Facebook account was compromised; > perhaps he or a family member clicked on a malicious link, allowing his > account to be taken over. > > The most important question: Who the heck is Adam? > > Update: Facebook sent this statement, which indicates that if Mr. > Genachowski wants to continue to use Facebook, he will have to get some > education about the safe use of this particular form of communication. > > We take security very seriously and have devoted significant > resources towards helping our users protect their accounts. We’ve d > eveloped complex automated systems that detect and flag Facebook acc > ounts that are likely to be compromised (based on anomalous activity > like lots of messages sent in a short period of time, or messages with > links that are known to be bad). Because Facebook is a closed system, > we have a tremendous advantage over email. That is, once we detect a > phony message, we can delete that message in all inboxes across the > site. > > We also block malicious links from being shared and work with third > parties to get phishing and malware sites added to browser blacklists or > taken down completely. Users whose accounts have been compromised are > put through a remediation process, where they must take steps to > re-secure their account and learn security best practices. This is what > happened with Chairman Genachowski’s account. > > To combat these threats, however, we need users’ help too. You can > protect yourself by never clicking on strange links, even if they’ve > been sent by friends, and by being wary of sites that ask you to > download or upgrade software. > > We educate people about online security through our Facebook > Security Page, which has well over one million fans. > > ### > > -- > Best Regards, > > Simon Higgs > ------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ----- End forwarded message -----