Facebook: Virus Attack with Violent and Pornographic Images Resolved

In recent days, many Facebook subscribers have had to endure images of a heavy and unpleasant nature, unable to do anything to avoid viewing them: a hacker attack on the social network had indeed led to the proliferation of questionable photos on thousands of profiles and walls.
An unprecedented wave of pornographic spam in the history of Facebook, which spread through the usual channels – via malicious links and javascript code carefully designed by cybercriminals – but which had never manifested in such quantities.
And while many initially thought it might be a demonstration attack by some Anonymous members, it is precisely Facebook’s technical staff who deny this hypothesis, stating that the perpetrators of this cyber trap have been identified and that none of them are members of Anonymous.
The situation has fortunately returned to normal, and it has been realized that the hacker at work did not actually act on the code or any flaws in the Facebook platform itself, but rather exploited a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability inherent in the web browsers used by users. This vulnerability was triggered by the naive behavior of subscribers who copy-pasted the link into their navigation bar, allowing the virus to start and act, with no way to stop it once triggered.
By activating the trap, the stream of shares on the wall effectively transformed into an explicit and violent photo gallery, impossible for the user to block.
The very way the virus propagated – not comparable to Anonymous’s usual methods – convinced Facebook’s security engineers to look elsewhere for the culprit who, it appears, is about to face legal action that the social network’s executives are preparing to file.