VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - Facebook users have been complaining about receiving pornographic and violent images. The social networking site is currently dealing with one of the biggest security breaches it has ever seen.
Many bloggers are blaming the international hacking group
Anonymous for the attack. The shadowy collective posted a video over the summer threatening Facebook; the video included the following statement:
"November 5th, 2011. We are Anonymous. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget."
Users on the social networking site have been receiving messages from their
Facebook friends, often with vague messages like "this is hot," and a link. Users who have clicked on the links have been confronted with offensive images and their accounts have likely been compromised, allowing the spam-virus to spread.
"They're not trying to do identity theft and maybe get credit card info, or even make money. They're trying to disrupt the service and really shake people's trust in Facebook" says Lance Ulanoff with the website
Mashable.
"The way it starts is someone either grabs a link, or clicks on a link in Facebook or something connected to Facebook that sort of launches it (the virus)," he adds.
The offending program that is delivering the unwanted pictures and spreading across the Facebook platform is known as the Fawkes virus. Click with caution.