Recently, it was revealed that a number of authorised Facebook accounts had been compromised and were being used to spread malware via approved and paid advertisements on the social media site.
To fool people into clicking dubious download links, the hackers went to considerable efforts to impersonate Facebook itself, including establishing pages with names like “Meta Ads” and “Meta Ads Manager” that sound genuine.
One of the first people to notice the bogus ads was social media expert Matt Navarra, who immediately alerted others on Twitter. Navarra uploaded a screenshot of a Meta advertisement that was actually a false advertisement.
Another verified Facebook account was compromised and used to spread false links for Bard, Google’s AI chatbot, by impersonating “Google AI.”
The stolen account belonged to Indian singer and actress Miss Pooja and had over 7 million followers, according to TechCrunch. On April 29, the name of the account was altered, and it started disseminating questionable links to its followers.
Facebook’s parent company, Meta, said in a statement that while it devotes a lot of effort to detecting and blocking hackers and scams, con artists continue to develop ways to circumvent security precautions.
The representative stated that although many of the company’s enhancements are not immediately apparent, they significantly reduce the likelihood that users would really have problems.
Additionally, Meta recently found that malware developers were utilising the public’s interest in ChatGPT as a means of tricking people into downloading malicious software and browser extensions. The business compared this strategy to bitcoin scams because both prey on people’s curiosity and trust to get private data.
Meta discovered about ten malware families impersonating ChatGPT and related technologies to hijack accounts online. The business claimed in its security report that it has looked into and combated various malware variants during the previous few months.
How did this ad get approved @Meta ?
😬
Verified account impersonating Meta tricking users into downloading shady tools pic.twitter.com/maPW6RWL3F
— Matt Navarra (I quit X. Follow me on Threads) (@MattNavarra) May 4, 2023