4chan pwns Christians on Facebook
Unholy hack
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The denizens of notorious imageboard 4chan are up to mischief again with an attack on Christians over the weekend.
Login details and passwords from an unnamed social networking or dating site for Christians* were posted as a file called "christian.txt" on 4chan. The information was spread among hackers, some of whom hit on the idea of hacking into the Facebook accounts of exposed users.
Given consumer password security is usually poor, it's no surprise that many victims used the same login credentials on both sites, which is one possible route of attack. Or it could be that email accounts associated with profiles at the Christian dating website were hit first, before Facebook account passwords were reset. The Next Web reports that Paypal and Amazon accounts were affected by the same hack, a factor that strongly suggests victims' email accounts might have been compromised.
Either way, once Facebook accounts were pwned the denizens of 4chan wasted no time posting unflattering or inflammatory remarks or images before waiting for victims' friends to pile in. In some instances pranksters commented while posing as the actual account owner.
Examples of the pranks perpetrated including claiming a "no sex before marriage" Christian wanted to thank her lover for a memorable night after months of abstinence, but had posted the thank you note in a status update, which all her contacts could see, rather than a private message. Racist messages and comments about dental hygiene were also included.
The ensuing chaos was captured in screenshots and reposted onto 4chan, the site that was the spawning pool for the Anonymous (Project Chanology) campaign against Scientology, as well as the birthplace of numerous internet memes.
Samples of the screenshots and more details on the attack can be found in a post on the Coffee Desk blog here. ®
* HardOCP reckons the passwords came from Abilene Christian University, though this remains unconfirmed.
COMMENTS
@Fraser
>purile and abusive
That would pretty much sum up 4chan, yes. Kinda the point in fact.
@ Chris C
I agree with you wholeheartedly on this one.
There's a big difference between, on the one hand, staging protests against the institution of Scientology on the grounds of morality, and on the other hand, logging into an individual's accounts and potentially sabotaging their personal relationships, 'for the lulz', purely on the basis of their choice to believe in some daft fairy stories.
I wonder how many of those who are posting on here about how funny this is are the self same folk that are up in arms at the merest mention of ID cards or national databases.
Regardless, if I were paying to advertise on El Reg I'd be negotiating a discount on the basis of the peurile kiddie readership that seems to be in evidence of late.
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