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Facebook phishing campaign hitting iOS users

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A new phishing campaign targeting mainly iOS users asking them to login in with their Facebook account and give away their credentials.

The report by Myki said the attackers create fake copies of legitimate sites to attract victims. The victim is then asked to login in using his or her social media credentials, like Facebook. When the fake login is clicked the person is taken to another Facebook page where the login information is typed in. Once the login button is clicked a message saying the credentials have been compromised appears effectively ending the session, but giving the malicious actors the legitimate credentials.

Antoine Vincent Jebara, CEO of Myki, said the aim of the attack is to use users' credentials by simulating native iOS actions, the prompt to authenticate via Facebook and the tab switching animation. So far iOS devices have been the primary target, but Jebara noted the technique can easily be ported over to scam Android users.

https://youtu.be/PWZKUOyz2bg

“From the moment a user accesses the malicious website, they are manipulated into performing actions that seem legitimate, all with the purpose of building up their confidence to submit their Facebook password at the final stage of the attack,” Jebara said.

The discovery of this issue was a spin off of earlier research that turned up a desktop campaign where an attacker is able to reproduce a social login prompt in a very realistic format inside an HTML block.

On the bright side Jebara indicated that the attack is poorly constructed with several flaws from both a process and design. However, the fact that most people have no idea what a particular action is supposed to look like may not recognize the fake images on the screen for what they are.

To protect oneself from this, another other similar attacks, Jebara recommended implementing multifactor authentication with social media platforms or a password manager. In this case either of these measures would have proven effective, he said.

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