Hacking of user accounts and pages on social media is not a new phenomenon. Scammers have hacked the accounts of even high-profile personalities, including politicians and celebrities, and posted messages in their names.
However, something rare happened this time on October 6 when Facebook users were stunned to see strange posts coming from Facebook’s official page. What alerted the Facebook users was the focus of these posts on criticizing the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) for not granting visas to Pakistani cricket fans for the ICC World Cup matches.
The highlight of this scam was a post demanding release of Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan. Another post stated, “Release Zuck.”
At 10.40 pm this post appeared on Facebook’s official page: “No idea why I suddenly have access to post stuff on Facebook. Or have I got it completely wrong and I’m not posting as Facebook UK?”
This was followed by another post that read: “Let me take this opportunity to let & know they have completely botched the event by not issuing visas to people who wanted to watch Cricket World Cup in person.”
According to DailyMail who first reported the incident, several posts appeared before Facebook realized the issue and responded. The social network promptly deleted all the posts and issued an official statement to notify users that the page had been compromised.
Simultaneously, the platform launched an investigation into the incident and took steps to enhance the page’s security. By 11.30 pm, Facebook’s official page was disabled. However, until then, thousands of users had seen these posts.
In February 2014, an Egyptian hacker managed to remove Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook timeline cover photo from his account using a private exploit.
