Facebook exposes mercenary spy firms that targeted 50,000 people
3 years ago

Facebook exposes mercenary spy firms that targeted 50,000 people

The Hindu  

Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc is calling out half a dozen private surveillance companies for hacking or other abuses, accusing them in a report published Thursday of collectively targeting about 50,000 people across its platforms. Gleicher refused to identify any of the targets by name but Citizen Lab, in a report published at the same time as Meta's, said that one of Cytrox's victims was Egyptian opposition figure Ayman Nour. Meta cybersecurity official David Agranovich said he hoped Thursday's announcement would "kickstart the disruption of the surveillance-for-hire market," but whether it deals the companies involved more than a temporary setback remains to be seen. Gleicher said that targets of the spy firms would receive automated warnings, but he said Facebook would stop short of identifying the specific firms involved or their clients. That's despite the fact that Facebook said it had identified several customers of Cobwebs, Cognyte, Cytrox, and Black Cube - the latter of which includes law firms.

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History of this topic

Meta Made Millions in Ads From Networks of Fake Accounts
2 years, 6 months ago

Meta Made Millions in Ads From Networks of Fake Accounts

Wired  

When Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg was called to testify before Congress in 2018, he was asked by Senator Orin Hatch how Facebook made money. Zuckerberg’s answer has since become something of a meme: “Senator, we run ads.” Between July 2018 and April 2022, Meta made at least $30.3 million in ad revenue from networks it removed from its own platforms for …

UPDATE 1-Facebook-owner Meta says Ukraine's military, politicians targeted in hacking campaign
2 years, 10 months ago

UPDATE 1-Facebook-owner Meta says Ukraine's military, politicians targeted in hacking campaign

The Hindu  

Meta Platforms said a hacking group used Facebook to target a handful of public figures in Ukraine, including prominent military officials, politicians and a journalist, amid Russia's ongoing invasion of the country. Meta said in the last 48 hours it had also separately removed a network of about 40 fake accounts, groups and pages across Facebook and Instagram that operated …

Meta uncovered and blocked about 40 profiles on Instagram and Facebook, pretending to be Ukraine News Portal
2 years, 10 months ago

Meta uncovered and blocked about 40 profiles on Instagram and Facebook, pretending to be Ukraine News Portal

India TV News  

Meta has taken down a network for targeting people in Ukraine who posed as news editors, aviation engineers and authors to spread misinformation around the Russian invasion across social media platforms. The people ran websites posing as independent news entities and created fake personas across social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Telegram and also Russian Odnoklassniki and VK …

Like Fake Accounts, Facebook Will Also Shut Real Accounts Engaging in Trolling: Report
3 years, 3 months ago

Like Fake Accounts, Facebook Will Also Shut Real Accounts Engaging in Trolling: Report

News 18  

Facebook is taking a more aggressive approach to shut down coordinated groups of real-user accounts engaging in certain harmful activities on its platform, using the same strategy its security teams take against campaigns using fake accounts, the company told Reuters. Facebook said it now plans to take this same network-level approach with groups of coordinated real accounts that systemically break …

FB says its rules apply to all. Company documents reveal secret exempted elites
3 years, 3 months ago

FB says its rules apply to all. Company documents reveal secret exempted elites

Live Mint  

Mark Zuckerberg has publicly said Facebook Inc. allows its more than three billion users to speak on equal footing with the elites of politics, culture and journalism, and that its standards of behavior apply to everyone, no matter their status or fame. A 2019 internal review of Facebook’s whitelisting practices, marked attorney-client privileged, found favoritism to those users to be …

Facebook allows VIP users to flout rules that other users have to follow, says report
3 years, 3 months ago

Facebook allows VIP users to flout rules that other users have to follow, says report

India Today  

Facebook seems to have different rules for different users especially if it is public figure, Facebook is apparently not very stern. The report states that Facebook runs a program called “XCheck”, which allows celebrities including actors, politicians and others to bypass the rules and guidelines that are followed by average users. The documents obtained by Wall Street Journal reveals that …

Facebook bans firm behind Pfizer, AstraZeneca smear campaign
3 years, 4 months ago

Facebook bans firm behind Pfizer, AstraZeneca smear campaign

Live Mint  

Providence: Facebook said Tuesday that it has removed hundreds of accounts linked to a mysterious advertising agency operating out of Russia that sought to pay social media influencers to smear COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer and AstraZeneca. The fake accounts targeted audiences in India, Latin America and, to a lesser extent, the U.S., using several social media platforms including Facebook …

Facebook Removes 'Stop The Steal' Content; Twitter Suspends QAnon Accounts
3 years, 11 months ago

Facebook Removes 'Stop The Steal' Content; Twitter Suspends QAnon Accounts

NPR  

Facebook Removes 'Stop The Steal' Content; Twitter Suspends QAnon Accounts Enlarge this image toggle caption Michael Reynolds/AP Michael Reynolds/AP Social media giants Twitter and Facebook have announced stricter measures on their platforms aimed at curbing misinformation and further unrest in response to last week's deadly insurrection led by pro-Trump extremists at the U.S. Capitol. Sponsor Message Twitter said it has …

Facebook takes down fake accounts for coordinated influence campaigns
4 years ago

Facebook takes down fake accounts for coordinated influence campaigns

The Hindu  

Facebook has taken down three networks from its various platforms for targeting African nations and violating the organisation’s policy on coordinated inauthentic behaviour, the company has said. According to Facebook, the network posted primarily in French and Arabic about news and current events including France’s policies in Francophone Africa, the security situation in various African countries, claims of potential Russian …

'Troll factory': Facebook, Twitter suspend accounts, pages linked to Russian network ahead of US election
4 years, 4 months ago

'Troll factory': Facebook, Twitter suspend accounts, pages linked to Russian network ahead of US election

Firstpost  

The FBI in a statement said that it will provide information to the platforms ’to better protect against threats to the nation’s security and democratic processes' Oakland: Facebook said Tuesday that it removed a small network of accounts and pages linked to Russia’s Internet Research Agency, the “troll factory” that has used social media accounts to sow political discord in …

Facebook suspends Russia-linked accounts for meddling in Africa
5 years, 2 months ago

Facebook suspends Russia-linked accounts for meddling in Africa

Al Jazeera  

Facebook has said it suspended three networks of Russian accounts for attempting to interfere in the domestic politics of eight African countries. “They typically posted about global and local political news including topics like Russian policies in Africa,” Facebook’s head of cyber security Nathaniel Gleicher said in the statement. In the case of Sudan, page administrators “posted about local news …

Facebook suspends thousands of apps over Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal
5 years, 3 months ago

Facebook suspends thousands of apps over Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal

Firstpost  

The suspended apps are associated with about 400 developers, Facebook said Facebook Inc said on Friday it has suspended tens of thousands of apps on the social networking platform, as part of the company’s ongoing app developer investigation it began on March 2018 in response to the Cambridge Analytica row. The suspended apps are associated with about 400 developers, Facebook …

Facebook to block fake US DHS accounts who are spying on profiles of foreigners
5 years, 4 months ago

Facebook to block fake US DHS accounts who are spying on profiles of foreigners

Firstpost  

“Law enforcement authorities are required to use their real names on Facebook and we make this policy clear,” Facebook spokeswoman Facebook said Tuesday that the US Department of Homeland Security would be violating the company’s rules if agents create fake profiles to monitor the social media of foreigners seeking to enter the country. “Law enforcement authorities, like everyone else, are …

Facebook warned staff, not users about the known risks before 2018 breach
5 years, 4 months ago

Facebook warned staff, not users about the known risks before 2018 breach

India Today  

The year 2018 brought a series of bad news for Facebook. Now, almost a year later new details about a bug that affected the accounts of nearly 50 million Facebook users have surfaced online. Facebook users are suing the world's largest social media company on the grounds that it failed to warn its users about the known risks pertaining to …

Facebook Removed Nearly 3.4 Billion Fake Accounts In 6 Months
5 years, 7 months ago

Facebook Removed Nearly 3.4 Billion Fake Accounts In 6 Months

NPR  

Facebook Removed Nearly 3.4 Billion Fake Accounts In 6 Months Enlarge this image toggle caption Francois Mori/AP Francois Mori/AP Facebook says it removed 3.39 billion fake accounts from October to March. In the company's latest Community Standards Enforcement Report, released Thursday, Facebook said nearly all of the fake accounts were caught by artificial intelligence and more human monitoring. Sponsor Message …

Cyber thugs running 'criminal flea market' on FB
5 years, 9 months ago

Cyber thugs running 'criminal flea market' on FB

The Quint  

San Francisco, April 6 The US cyber intelligence firm Cisco Talos has discovered 74 Facebook groups - touted as "online criminal flea market" -- that were buying and selling stolen credit card information and cybercrime tools. The groups, with approximately 385,000 members, promised to carry out "an array of questionable cyber dirty deeds, including the selling and trading of stolen …

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