Facebook declares victory over porn spammers

Nov 16, 2011, 19:09 GMT

San Francisco - Facebook has succeeded in blocking a spam attack that had filled users' pages with millions of pornographic and violent images, the company said Wednesday.

The world's largest social networking platform said it had identified those responsible for launching the attack and would take legal steps against them.

The announcement came a day after the site had fallen victim to one of the worst hacks in its history, with the obnoxious images spreading by masquerading as new Facebook feeds that downloaded poisoned files that were passed on to the victims' friends.

Some of the images include photoshopped images of Justin Bieber and other celebrities performing sex acts, as well as pictures of extreme violence and even an abused dog.

Facebook said the attack exploited a security flaw in certain browsers, which its engineering team has now blocked from being utilized on the site.

'Protecting the people who use Facebook from spam and malicious content is a top priority for us, and we are always working to improve our systems to isolate and remove material that violates our terms,' said Facebook in a statement.

'In addition to the engineering teams that build tools to block spam, we also have a dedicated enforcement team that has already identified those responsible and is working with our legal team to ensure appropriate consequences.'

Security experts said the spam attack could prompt many users to back off from using Facebook which is already facing a backlash over privacy concerns.

Facebook, which has around 800 million members, is also facing new competition from Google Plus, a social networking platform recently introduced by the internet software giant.