This week, a team of security researchers revealed that they have found more than 3,200 scam Facebook profiles that are impersonating the social media giant itself in order to steal users’ account credentials.

This relatively simple scam involves hackers creating phishing websites that look like the main Facebook log-in page. Then, they target the accounts of prominent Facebook users and businesses to steal their info and compromise their finances. But while this is an easy scam for hackers to pull off, it can be deceptively difficult for users to detect.

“The scammers impersonate Meta, Facebook’s parent company, in their public posts and on any of their more than 220 phishing sites,” the researchers wrote. “They appropriate Meta and Facebook’s official logos on their social media profiles and phishing web pages to make them appear legitimate and trustworthy in the eyes of users. These fake profiles have nothing to do with Facebook, and they are frequently taken down quickly by the social network.”

However, while individual scam accounts are often quickly removed, the team of researchers wrote that this general hacking campaign is still active on Facebook. Here’s hoping the company can root it out at the source soon to better protect its users.

Recommended Resources

Choose what the experts use: award-winning cybersecurity you can trust and rely on.

Surf the web truly incognito. Try Bitdefender Premium VPN, the ultra-fast VPN that keeps your online identity and activities safe from hackers, ISPs and snoops.

System Mechanic 14 – Make your computer run like new. Winner of 200+ Editor’s Choice awards!