Over the past few months thousands of Facebook users report receiving messages or friend requests from people they don’t know.
Researchers at VeriSign, an internet security company say they’ve tracked a growing trend of bogus or stolen Facebook accounts that are now up for sale in high volume on the black market.
VeriSign says 1.5 million Facebook accounts appear to be for sale.
Criminals apparently steal login data for accounts, typically with phishing techniques that trick users into disclosing their password.
They use the accounts to send out spam or malicious programs or steal a person’s identity.
Researchers found the upsurge in February, the same time Facebook altered security settings.
Now, Facebook says it has sophisticated systems to defeat fake accounts and also monitor unusual activity like many friend requests in a short period of time or high rates of friend requests that are ignored.
Experts say the best thing to do is know who you friend.
Make sure you use the security functions on the site and keep your information limited.
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