The large scale phishing campaign by cybercriminals amid the pandemic was a huge success, it harvested more than six hundred thousand Facebook credentials from Nepal, Egypt, the Philippines, and other countries. Early this month, ThreatNix, a group of security professionals that provides cybersecurity solutions published a report that shows more than fifteen thousand compromised Facebook PH accounts in this phishing campaign.

Ad sales are the primary source of Facebook’s revenue and because of the sudden shift to online commerce by many retailers due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the increase in demands for ad placements on Facebook has also tremendously increased. But even before the health crisis, Facebook has made it a point to make things convenient and productive to advertisers by providing tools with a wide range of targeting options to get maximum results on their placements. One of these tools is called Facebook Audience. With more than one billion daily active users, the social media giant recognizes that it is critical that advertisers only show paid posts to those who are more likely to engage with them. Any user where the ad is shown who is not likely to engage with the ad is a waste of advertising money. Using the Audience Manager Tool advertisers could easily identify Facebook users who would potentially click the ads or engage with them. This same tool that assures reach and engagement for ads placed on the FB platform was exploited by cybercriminals to get the same results, this time for clicks on the phishing links and tricking gullible users to engage with the FB paid posts. Once

Read More