Facebook blames

Facebook has said that the spam attack that unleashed massive quantities of violent and pornographic images across newsfeeds was caused by using of a browser with a security flaw rather than any problem with the social networking site.

"During this spam attack users were tricked into pasting and executing malicious javascript in their browser URL bar causing them to unknowingly share this offensive content," the Telegraph quoted a Facebook spokesman, as saying. "No user data or accounts were compromised during this attack," the spokesman added.

The social networking giant said the attack exploited a 'vulnerability' in an unnamed browser. The vulnerability meant that when users were on Facebook and were tricked into pasting a piece of malicious javascript into the browser's address bar, it was able to take control of their News Feed to post the shocking images.

"We've built enforcement mechanisms to quickly shut down the malicious pages and accounts that attempt to exploit it," Facebook's spokesman said. "We also been put those impacted through educational checkpoints so they know how to protect themselves.

We've put in place backend measures to reduce the rate of these attacks and will continue to iterate on our defences to find new ways to protect people," he added.

Facebook has advised users not to enter unknown software codes into their address bar, and to always use and up-to-date browser and report suspicious content they see on friends' profiles. (ANI)

Source : http://in.news.yahoo.com