Nearly 50,000 Facebook users may have been targets of private surveillance
Facebook is notifying nearly 50,000 users in more than 100 countries that they may have been targets of hacking attempts by private surveillance companies working for government agencies, the company said Thursday.
The notification is the result of a months-long investigation by Meta, Facebook’s parent company, into what Meta officials called “cyber-mercenaries” who engage in “surveillance-for-hire.” As a result, Facebook said it was taking enforcement actions against seven surveillance companies based in four countries, removing about 1,500 fake accounts, blocking malicious web addresses and sending cease-and-desist letters to the companies.
Meta’s investigators concluded that these companies used Meta’s Facebook and Instagram subsidiaries for surveillance activities, mainly to research and groom targets for later infections by spyware. Each step was part of a broader targeting process the researchers called the “surveillance chain.”
Source: Facebook acts against 7 companies it says spy on users – The Washington Post
