Whoops! F.C.C. Chairman Spams Facebook Friends

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

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 lon 
> ger visible on the site. A Facebook spokesman, Larry Yu, said the co 
> mpany 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 li 
> nk, 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 w 
> ith links that are known to be bad).  Because Facebook is a closed s 
> ystem, we have a tremendous advantage over email.  That is, once we  
> detect a phony message, we can delete that message in all inboxes ac 
> ross 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 accoun 
> t.
>
>    To combat these threats, however, we need users’ help too.  You c 
> an 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



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