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In the wake of its efforts to take legal action against those abusing its social media platform, social media giant Facebook has now accused a Hong Kong-based advertising company and two Chinese individuals of purportedly exploiting its ad platform to dispense malware and Ad fraud.
All three defendants have been suspected to have cheated people into installing malware on their systems, allowing them to compromise user’s Facebook accounts and then using those hacked accounts to promote fake goods and diet pills—which is obviously in violation of Facebook’s Terms and Advertising Policies.
Facebook says that the defendants made use of indecorous practices such as “celeb bait” and “cloaking” to lure its users into downloading and installing malware that ultimately compromised their Facebook accounts.
While ‘cloaking’ includes intentionally hiding the true destination of a link in the ad by showing one version of the ad’s landing page to Facebook and another version to Facebook users, ‘celeb bait’ includes abusing stars’ photos in ads to lure users to click on them.
“Cloaking schemes are often sophisticated and well organized, making the individuals and organizations behind them difficult to identify and hold accountable. As a result, there have not been many legal actions of this kind,” Facebook said.
Since April, Facebook has informed many of its users that their accounts may have been affected, and advised them to change their passwords.
The company also said that it had issued more than $4 million in refunds to victims whose Facebook accounts were used to run illegal ads and also helped to secure their accounts affected in this malicious advertisement system.
This is the latest lawsuit that the social media giant filed in a federal court against companies and individuals exploiting its properties for malicious intention.
More than a month ago, Facebook charged surveillance vendor NSO Group for purportedly hacking 1,400 mobile devices by abusing the company’s secure messaging platform, WhatsApp.
