Facebook: browsers to blame for explicit spam

[Jazzy]

Facebook has said that a wave of pornographic image spam in News Feeds was caused by users of a browser with a security flaw rather than any problem with the website.



Photoshopped images of celebrities such as Justin Bieber in pornographic scenes, along with pictures of abused animals, became widespread on the world’s largest social network this week.



Facebook said it had identified the problem and was working to contain it.

“During this spam attack users were tricked into pasting and executing malicious javascript in their browser URL bar causing them to unknowingly share this offensive content,” a spokesman said.



“No user data or accounts were compromised during this attack.”

Javascript is a programming language widely used to create the interactive elements of web pages. Facebook said the attack exploited a vulnerability in an unnamed browser.



Full article: http://www.telegraph...licit-spam.html



If this is true, why are they not stating what browser caused it?

 

[The Dragon Master]

Dunno

 

[Skillet]

They just don't want to admit it is a security flaw and all your personal info was taken

 

[Evil Eye]

If this is true, why are they not stating what browser caused it?

It's easy enough to test it for yourself.

Just copy

javascript:alert('Hi, guys!');

into your address bar and see if it does anything.



In any case, blame users, not browsers. Ignorance is key here. Being able to run JS through the address bar can actually be useful.

 

[Skillet]

That ended up searching Google on Chrome.

 

[Evil Eye]

That ended up searching Google on Chrome.

Chrome refuses to copy the javascript: part. It only works if you manually type it. Firefox seems to have disabled it altogether, though only in the newer versions.

 

[Bryd0]

Wait, those revolting images are to do with the browser you're using?

Didn't think that'd be the case, and it's a good I never came across any of that as I'm using Firefox 8 currently, but a friend of mine was one of the unlucky ones.

 

[Crusader]

So surely if it is a flaw with a browser, they should tell us? I mean, I think I have a right to know if my browser has a flaw that is putting me at risk to such content.