Nearly 200 million users of popular social networking site Facebook were targeted by hackers, with internet fraudsters stealing the passwords of many members, says a media report.
"Facebook's 200 million users have been targeted by hackers in the latest 'phishing' scam to hit the social networking website," British daily The Telegraph has reported.
Quoting a Facebook spokesman, the report said that internet fraudsters stole the passwords of a number of members on Thursday in a successful attack.
"These brought up fake Facebook log-on pages which requested the visitors re-enter their user names and passwords. Anyone who did so effectively handed the conmen the keys to their profile," the daily noted in a report published online today.
However, it is not clear how many accounts have been compromised.
Attributing to Facebook, the report said the social networking site was working to block those taken over by the hackers and minimise the fallout.
"All references to the fake domains which include www.151.im, www.121.im and www.123.im have been deleted from the website," it added.
According to the daily, Facebook's security team believes the hackers intended to wait until they had garnered a large number of details before taking over the accounts to spam other members with adverts for fake pharmaceuticals and other products.
The report said social networks are particularly vulnerable to phishing attacks which can also be used to steal users' identities. This is because members tend to be less suspicious of messages apparently sent by their friends than they are of unsolicited emails, it added.
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