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Facebook hack service smells fishy

Supposed hackers may be scamming the terminally nosey

Eastern European hackers are offering to crack into any Facebook account for a fee of $100, payable online through Western Union, though circumstantial evidence suggests that the scheme might just as easily be geared towards ripping-off potential clients while delivering nothing.

The Facebook hacking service, offered by Ukrainian hackers via a domain registered in Moscow, offers to provide clients with the login and password credentials of any account. Potential clients are offered a money-back promise in cases where a targeted profile (which might belong to celebrities, politicians, or well-known companies as well as ordinary users) proves unhackable.

Screenshots from the supposed service, obtained by Panda Security, can be found here.

Hackers claim they've been offering the service for four years, during which time they've enjoyed a 99 per cent success rate. However, the domain via which the service is offered is only a few days old, raising doubts about the authenticity of the service.

"The system’s real purpose may be hacking Facebook accounts as they say, or profiting from those that want to try the service," said Luis Corrons, Technical Director of PandaLabs. "In any case, the Web page is very well designed. It is easy to contract the service and become, either the victim of an online fraud, or a cyber-criminal and accomplice in identity theft."

Corrons, who explored the service without handing over a fee to the cybercrooks behind it, concludes that it's very probably a scam.

"This is all about taking the money from users. And at the end, as the user wanted to hack an account, he won't call the police," he concludes.

While this particular service is suspect, that's not to say account hijacking on Facebook is not a problem.

Hacking the Facebook account of a celeb or big brand might be an end in itself. Alternatively, access to social networking accounts might be used to spy on targets.

Compromised social networking profiles in general might be used to distribute spam or malware or as stepping stones towards attacks on a mark's webmail or online banking accounts. ®

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