New Facebook malware promises to reveal identities

Warnings have been made about a new Facebook attack that promises to display hidden messages.

An application on the social networking site named ‘Honesty Box' allows users to send and receive "anonymous messages and discover what people really think of you" with all of the users' friends and network members allowed to write in it.

Part of the selling point is that the messages are anonymous. The application writers claim that they "will never reveal who sent messages on Honesty Box, unless, in our sole judgment, the content of a message violates our Terms of Use and/or Privacy Policy".

However, Christopher Boyd, director of research at FaceTime security labs, claimed that a group of individuals are spamming a fake program to the walls of unsuspecting Facebook users, which promises to reveal who left them messages in their Honesty Box.

Boyd said: “The program claims it will strip out the hidden data from your honesty box, then convert it into a name so you know who left the message. Of course, it's all nonsense; the program is bound with a random Keylogger /Trojan/virus of the attackers' choosing, which means your day could take a very random and unfortunate turn depending on what they have in store for you.

“This could be a perfect setup for scammers to phish accounts, then use those compromised accounts to spam the application onto more Facebook walls where new victims can be attracted by the lure of ‘really secret stuff'.”

See original article on scmagazineuk.com