This week, a team of security researchers announced that they have discovered a massive malware campaign running through Facebook Ads that has infected about half a million users around the world over the past three months.

This campaign, which has been traced to a Vietnamese cybercriminal, uses Facebook Ads promoting free porn to entice users to click. After they do, a malicious ZIP file is downloaded to their computer that will launch an attack after the files within it are opened. Additionally, this bad actor is also hijacking legitimate business accounts to launch these attacks.

“This threat actor is creating new business profiles, as well as hijacking real, reputable profiles with even millions of followers,” the researchers wrote. “Not only this amplifies the reach, hurting new users, it completely halts the legitimate business activity of reputable brands and stores that may have been building their accounts for years.”

Thankfully, it’s easy for users to avoid these kinds of hacks if they exercise caution when clicking links on Facebook. However, the widespread success of this attack indicates that some people still need to be taught this basic lesson — and in their case, it’s being learned the hard way.

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