Facebook said Wednesday that it had identified the source of a malware attack on the social network and was working to fix the problem.
The particularly vicious attack left many users of the 800-million member social network irate as hardcore pornographic videos and violent images, including depictions of animal cruelty, were posted on their timelines without their knowledge. In many cases, the content was not visible to the account owner but was flooding the news feeds of their Facebook friends.
Facebook identified the source of the problem as malware that users cut-and-pasted into their browser’s address bar. The attack lasted for more than 24 hours. The identification of the problem and promises of a quick fix by the company did little to appease many of the angriest users, who threatened to close their accounts.
“I rather deal with twitter spam than facebook porn,” Chris Herbert posted on Twitter, even as news of the cause and suggested fixes spread on social networks Wednesday morning.
And some went as far to suggest a tongue-in-cheek conspiracy theory.
“Facebook leaked porn themselves to make it relevant again…” @SwearToGoodness tweeted.
Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports that the attack had been carried out by Anonymous continued to spread on social networks, even though the group had yet to claim credit for it. Facebook did not identify the browser believed to be the source of the problem, nor did it offer any speculation on who may have launched the attack.
Photo by LarimdaME