DIGITAL LIFE

Private messaging of accounts put up for sale

The BBC is moving forward with the news that private messages belonging to 81,000 Facebook accounts went on sale on the Internet, with the technology ensuring that it was not targeted by any computer attack.According to the information currently available it is known that those responsible are expected to be Russian hackers, with most of the accounts affected having originated in Russia, Ukraine and still in the United Kingdom. Private messages for sale may be just the beginning, with the hackers in question reporting data belonging to 120 million Facebook accounts.In its defense, Facebook points out that messages and data will have been obtained by hackers through malicious extensions installed in browsers such as Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. It appears that the extensions in question are allowed to record all data entered by users as they browse the Internet, which indicates that they may even know about passwords.Facebook says it has already contacted the authorities so that the situation is investigated and sites where the data is being sold are suspended.



Miguel Dias