74 Facebook Groups With 385,000 Members Serves as Black Markets for Hackers to Carry out Illegal Activities

Cybercriminal host dozens of Facebook groups to serve as a marketplace for carrying out a number of illicit services and for exchanges. Instead of using hidden services cybercriminals prefer to operate in the massive social media platform.

Talos research uncovered several groups on Facebook that involved in illegal activities, some groups found active for 8 years and acquired thousands of group members.

In total 74 groups were spotted carrying out the malicious activity that includes selling and trading of stolen bank/credit card information, credentials, account credentials, and Email spamming tools.

The groups had more than 385,000 members and the group names look obvious includes. “Spam Professional,” “Spammer & Hacker Professional, “Facebook hack (Phishing)” and more.

Any Facebook user can locate the group by searching with the keywords such as “spam,” or “CVV” and the Facebook algorithm will suggest the similar groups, so the Facebook becomes an easy hangout of cybercriminals, reads the Talos blog post.

Researchers found several posts where “users were selling credit card numbers and their accompanying CVVs, sometimes with identification documents or photos belonging to the victims.”

Other products such as the large email lists and account details of various organizations and government entities and the payments processed in cryptocurrencies.

Talos reported all the malicious groups to Facebook’s security team and all the groups have been taken down immediately.

This is not the first time in Facebook, In April 2018, Kerbs alerted that cyber criminals using Facebook groups to a variety of illicit services.

“Social media has provided tools enabling individuals from all over the globe to congregate and share ideas. This is one of social media’s defining features.”

Days before, Over 540 million Facebook users personal records that include comments, likes, reactions, account names, FB IDs exposed to the public Internet. All the data are collected and stored by Third-Party developers.

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