Facebook Hacked By 4chan, Accounts Compromised

So there’s a Facebook screenshot floating around in the Blogosphere depicting a woman with a very embarrassing status, as Mashable naively reports. Truth is, a Christian dating website was compromised by 4chan hackers and they used the information to take over the victims’ Facebook pages.

Screenshots

I’ll get right to it: below are some screenshots of other compromised Facebook accounts, posted by the hackers themselves. Some even have 4chan visibly open in another browser tab within the screenshots (which will open in a new browser window/tab).

Compromised Facebook Account

Compromised Facebook Account, actually pretty humorous.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="93" caption="Another Compromised account, NSFW-proofed"]Another Compromised account, NSFW-proofed[/caption]
Yet another one

Yet another one, this one being pretty twisted.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="150" caption="Okay, this one is actually pretty funny"]Okay, this one is actually pretty funny[/caption]
Your teeth match your skin! - hilarious (although cruel)

"Your teeth match your skin!" - hilarious (although cruel)

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="150" caption="Warning: typical racist 4chan comments reside within"]Warning: typical racist 4chan comments reside within[/caption]
More 4chan racism

More 4chan racism

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="150" caption="Another funny, non-racist comment, once again about teeth. "]Another funny, non-racist comment, once again about teeth. [/caption]
The one that started it all

The one that started it all

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="111" caption="NSFW-language in this post"]And more racism[/caption]

More about the attacks

The unnamed Christian dating service I mentioned earlier had an exploit in the website that allowed the entire list of usernames and passwords for the site to be exposed. The files were then placed into “christian.txt” (seen in some of the screenshots), then posted on 4chan where they were spread amongst other hackers.

Not for certain, but I believe the use of the same password for both email and the dating service allowed the hackers, armed with the user database contents of the dating website, to enter the email accounts of the victims where they could retrieve a generated password recovery email from Facebook.

If this is the case, then Facebook may not have been the only target of the attacks, although it is certainly the most prominent. You can see Yahoo! email accounts open in background tabs in some of the fuller screenshots, as well as 4chan and the “Christian.txt” file listing the users.

Before we get in trouble…

We don’t condone hacking. I posted the screenshots because I thought I should elaborate the cause of the Facebook photo everyone has been talking about, but other than that I don’t find many of the attackers’ comments very funny, except for a few harmless non-racist comments such as the teeth insults.

In case my educated guess as to the cause of the attack is correct, let me say that I or anybody else here didn’t participate in the attacks. Honestly.

And finally, don’t do this. I’m sure these attacks caused many people a lot of grief, especially the more twisted suicide threats and others that may have caused law enforcement to get involved. It just isn’t funny at all, especially at that point.

That said, I hope everybody knows what really happened with this now. Don’t re-use passwords, and webmasters: sanitize your inputs. That’s all, folks.

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About Stephen:



Stephen (last name kept private) is currently a student at the University of South Carolina with a major in computer science. He is very knowledgeable when it comes to current as well as up-and-coming software technologies, and is renown for his intuitive reviews of software products and services.

Comments (116)

 

  1. zz says:

    i’ve seen the justification of ~ they probably deserved getting their fb broken into because they are likely hippocrites ~ … possibly the worst justification i’ve seen in a while… first off the commenter allows the possibility of them being innocent… simply weak… second off (and finally) the commenter ignores the fact of life that it is not up to their discretion to discern who gets dealt punishment… or why/how/when

  2. Comedy Blog says:

    I can only hope that this caused irreparable damage.

  3. madlulz says:

    omg mad fucking lulz!!!!!! thats hilarious

  4. Luke says:

    The coffee desk where did you find these pictures? on 4chan? I would love to see more, these definitely gave me a good laugh even though they are childish

  5. not pointing fingers but says:

    Anyone care to look at the tabs open in the pics?

  6. Haha says:

    To a 4channer

    Don’t give us that BS about the “complexities of 4channers”. We aren’t buying it. You know why? Because the ignorant are simple.

  7. Dad says:

    children all.Get outside and suck up some sunshine,go for a walk,ride,drive.Get to the beach,go to a concert.Dont forget your tan cream tho kiddies,all that white skin from sitting behind your pc’s will burn pretty quick.Seriously,get out and live.

  8. Emily says:

    You are a sick minded individual to find any of this amusing, I hope your website gets shut down and you leave poor 4chan alone!

  9. Elegen/tg/entleman says:

    elegen/tg/entleman here, we at /tg/ had nothing to do with this. Also you newfags, this is a raid so keep in mind rules 1 and 2.

    also, LOL

  10. ASDSA says:

    IT WAS EBAUMS

  11. anon says:

    4͠C̛̀͏HA͢͝N͜ ̷͠I̷S͡ ̷̀AL͏̛L̡̕-̢̢K͞ŃÒ͜W̷͟͟I̸N̢̧͞G͝

  12. Derp says:

    Are you all retarded or something? By advertising the site more and more, you bring more people to our site that want more lulz therefore it ends up with more and more facebook accounts getting hacked. That doesn’t include the retarded newfags that come. It’s a lose/lose situation. Keep your mouths shut about us.

  13. eric ebaum says:

    this is not old news. this is new stuff, happened today

  14. anon says:

    4͢҉ÇḨÀ̀N̶͞ ́͘͡A̕Ş̧S̀͝I̛͟M̸͠͏I̵L̶A̴͟T̶̵̕ÈS ̧A̢̕L̀͏L̴

  15. ShoeBaumer says:

    eBaumsword pulls another fast one on the internet and gets it blamed on 4chan.

    We rule the internet!!

    Power to eBaums!!

  16. David says:

    Well, these vandalics acts are happening very often, facebook’s security is crap, how can they let our information so exposed?

  17. anon says:

    4CHAN͠ WILL͞ ͏DĘSTR͢O̴Y Y͘O̶U̕

  18. Chester says:

    This is old news. Those pictures are actually from a raid on SINGLES.com and by EBAUMSWORLD.com. It was all over cnn awhile ago. I’m surprised this has come back. Recent facebook and singles.com security patches have made the hacking method obsolete so as to stop the hacking.

  19. Preston S. says:

    Silly people, 4chan didn’t do this, I saw it on Ebaum’s.

    You see, the two sites are constantly taking jabs at each other, and ebaums just staged this to look like it was their fault.

  20. Super non anon says:

    ebaumsworld did this…
    wtf man why give 4CHAN credit for this???

  21. moot says:

    It was /tg/. Trust me on this one guys.

  22. Anon1337 says:

    Your All Tossers, Cant You Tell Ebaumsworld from 4chan?
    Idiots, the lot of you.
    Long Live /b/!

  23. 51987814689 says:

    ebaums is the biggest hacker site on the internets, currently

  24. Eric Bauman says:

    4chan taking credit for Ebaum’s work? LOL

  25. Anonymous says:

    IM BEHIND 300 PROXIES, LETS SEE YOU TRY

  26. ebaum says:

    zaza said in August 23rd, 2009 at 6:53 am

    if you break into a house where the key lays under the carpet you’re a burglar too… it’s the same thing

    but it’s sure funny as hell, it’s pretty clear that it’s fake, and nobody really get’s hurt.

    FAKE?? I was there the whole time tared!

  27. Sooo uhhh says:

    How do you know 4chan did this? I see no proof thats what happened it was probably a site like 4chan ex. Ebaumsworld.com Prove that /b/ did it because I doubt they did.

  28. aggasdf says:

    get a brain, morans. it was all over the ebaumsworld forum

  29. ebaum says:

    User Gravatar
    bizlady08 said in August 22nd, 2009 at 8:16 pm

    Hey Stephen,
    Thanks for the info. What is 4chan exactly? So, these FB accounts were compromised through an unsecured 3rd-party site? I’d hate to think my FB account could be hacked so easily.

    Thanks again for taking the time to post this info. Much more insightful than what Mashable posted. In fact, I was easily able to find the FB page “that started it all” through the screen shot. Please X out the friends names to protect their privacy.

    LMAO!!!!

  30. Doorknob says:

    All you wanna/b/tards do know that posting here logs your IP if you’re not behind 9001 proxies. phayl hard, newfags, and smell the pixels

  31. D. Plainview says:

    Well it’s there own fault for not changing their passwords, eh? I mean, if you have a milkshake, and I have a milkshake, and I have a straw. There it is, that’s a straw, you see? You watching?. And my straw reaches acroooooooss the room, and starts to drink your milkshake… I… drink… your… milkshake!

  32. ANON says:

    it was ebaumsworld! not that other site!

  33. Anonymous says:

    IT WAS EBAUMSWORLD, IDIOT

  34. jesus says:

    ebaumsworld.com did it

  35. Ebaumstrikesagain says:

    I can’t believe ebaums would blame this on 4chan! We’re not all bad over there!

  36. Anonymous says:

    Typical Ebaumsworld. Always doing racist and horrible things

  37. anon says:

    ebaumsworld did this not 4chan.

  38. Anonymous says:

    ahahhahhaha EBAUMSWORLD STRIKE WAS SO PERFECT, IT GOT PASSED OFF AS 4CHAN! HIGH FIVE GUYS, HIGH FIVES ALL AROUND!

  39. anonymous says:

    Fuck ebaums, we get blamed for all their shit

  40. Anonymous says:

    ebaumsworld has done it again! Stupid hackers from ebaumsworld

  41. white KNIGHT says:

    DON’T GIVE 4CHAN CREDIT FOR THE WORK OF EBAUMS

  42. ANON says:

    WOW fuckin ebaumsworld up to so stupid shit again!

  43. chicksdigscars says:

    This isn’t a hate crime.
    It’s simply the Internet exposing its hypocrites.
    These “upstanding” folks, these “good” and “morally correct” Christians, often turn out to be nothing but hypocrites who use their faith to justify their own misdeeds.
    Wake the fuck up — just because someone is a victim doesn’t always mean they don’t deserve it.

  44. Anonymous says:

    IT WAS ALL EBAUMS!

  45. anon says:

    we are legion

  46. WhiteKnight says:

    I feel like someone should warn you that a lot of events like this get foisted off on 4chan despite the fact that they originated in places like BeyondBirthday and even Ebaums, there are boards other than /b/ and they get a bad reputation because of blogs like this.

  47. Anonymous says:

    The press should be made aware of the fact that many of these members of this Christian DATING site also turned out to be MARRIED so who is really at fault here?

    ..and those 4chan losers got no h4xx0r 5ki115 eb4ums pwnz xt1an a55 everyone knows that

  48. ebaumsmods suck says:

    Everyone, don’t believe this! It’s not 4chan! It’s Ebaumsworld, they’re behind this all! All the Ebaums people are sworn not to name Ebaums and EVERYTHING gets blamed on 4chan instead but I got banned, so what do I have to lose now!?! HAHAHAH FUCK THE MODS FUCK EBAUMS

  49. Anonymous says:

    ebaumsworld did this not 4chan.

  50. NO-One says:

    someone needs to kick his ass

  51. JEREMY says:

    The login list came out about 6 months ago, but Eric Ebaum took it upon himself to post it again the other day, whereupon the accounts were compromised yet again, resulting in the images above.

  52. randomguy123 says:

    Just to note, you left that Reverend Bob guy’s phone number unblocked in the images. He’s probably getting a crap ton of phone calls and texts right now.

  53. ace says:

    id welcome them to hack my fb if they were going to write that sort of gold on it….genius

  54. 12 years old says:

    I am 12 and what is this?

  55. not really... says:

    How was the Palin hack started by ebaumsworld. Wouldn’t they post the password on ebaums instead of /b/? The top 100 poll, did you even look at the first 21 names? trust me, whatever you think ebaums is capable of doing, the average /b/tard can do just as easily.

  56. Vertigo says:

    @Peddy Bear

    OLOLOLOL
    nice try

  57. Peddy Bear says:

    Dude, it wasn’t 4chan who hacked into those poor Christians’ accounts. It was a site called ebaumsworld. Everything bad that’s been happening on the internet was ebaumsworld users’ doing. See the Palin hack, MTV Music Awards Rickroll, TIME Top 100 poll (rigged by ebaumsworld to pin it on moot, a mod on 4chan), and many many more.

    Trust me, 4chan users would never do such a thing. They’re incapable of it. Most of them are just overweight 15 year old losers who like pictures of cats and hentai.

    Peace.

  58. Canar says:

    The internet hate machine is at it again…

  59. DFX Deimos says:

    That is some funny stuff.

  60. P. says:

    Mate, when your censoring images, remove the title bar text…

  61. Bill says:

    Hate crime? You’re an idiot. This is hilarity at its best. Getting the cops involved in something like this is like calling 911 because McDonalds shorted you a nugget.

    Don’t reuse passwords and this type of shit won’t happen. Idiots.

  62. Dunc says:

    Oh dear, thank you very much for the biggest laugh I’ve had in some time. I’m in tears.

  63. Hakurou says:

    That’s not hacking, that’s using a dumped list to get the websites stupid “security” to work for them to make the website insecure.

  64. Me says:

    This should be prosecuted as a hate crime if they can track down any involved.

  65. Peanutbutter says:

    @traitor /b/tard lol they dont give a flying SHlT about some random blog on the internets./b/tards get DDosed all the time and act like nothing happened.

  66. Anon E. Moose says:

    I’m 12 years old and what is this?

  67. milso says:

    I hate 4CHAN, one time it went to my blog and tried to hack it. But I’m pretty good with my MAC so I was able to stop it before it got in.

  68. test123 says:

    This happened six months ago, it even made its round on various news sites. It was singles.org that got hacked.

    Why bloggers are resurrecting this story as if it happened yesterday is beyond me.

    OLD NEWS.

  69. anons says:

    “I honestly wouldn’t know. Like I said, I don’t visit the board, but everything I see originating from it looks like blatant racism at first glance. There may be a meta-joke in there, but I just see racism as one whom doesn’t visit the board let alone understand its jokes.”

    You realise you just admitted to being a moron who likes to judge with no supporting evidence, right?

    Anyway, that shit is SO cash. But you act like it’s over…

    It isn’t.

  70. Anon89 says:

    Dont go to 4chan Or your FB will be hacked too! LOLZ!

  71. traitor /b/tard says:

    This page has been targeted by 4chan.org/b/ for raiding. Most of the comments you will see are lies, deciet, or ‘trolling’. Be warned. Do not follow any links. Do not download any files.

  72. Anon24 says:

    LOL, I love 4chan so much.
    I feel kinda bad for those people though… I hope they got things all straightened out.

  73. Anonymous says:

    not a very good job covering things up. see some penis in the NSFW pic and a couple full names.

  74. YERMOM says:

    YAY ANONS!!

  75. troll says:

    nice troll pedros

  76. EFG says:

    folks, there is a reason why 4chan is called the internets anus, because its mostly crap, with a couple gold nuggets in it, scaturday was a fine example of it. Also, this yet again proves that the only god online is anonymous

  77. Joe says:

    “That said, I hope everybody knows what really happened with this now. Don’t re-use passwords, and webmasters: sanitize your inputs. That’s all, folks.”

    You forgot one other big rule for webmasters: Never store the original password in the database! Always do a one-way hash with a salt. This page tells both why and how:

    http://www.15seconds.com/issue/000217.htm

  78. Pedros Bearstein says:

    There is a mistake in this article. The actual site is called ‘ebaumsworld’ not 4chan. Ebaums is a site filled with over 9000 hackers on steroids, beware! Protect your passwords and use unique ones.

  79. /b/tard says:

    haha that was funny. They kept posting screen shoots. I lulz’d hard. Wheres Donna’s?? hers was the funniest. LONG LIVE /b/! LONG LIVE QUEEN /b/oxxy!

  80. Cc says:

    Downvoted for ‘facebook hack’ lie.

  81. slinkyDomo says:

    Wow, 4Chan ROCKS. The moderators are total WANKERS, but 4chan in general does ROCK!

    RT
    http://www.web-tools.us.tc

  82. Matthew L. says:

    ROFLMAOBBQ I LAUGHED SO HARD AT THAT KKK ONE THAT WAS HILARIOUS! ROFLROFLROFL

  83. zaza says:

    if you break into a house where the key lays under the carpet you’re a burglar too… it’s the same thing

    but it’s sure funny as hell, it’s pretty clear that it’s fake, and nobody really get’s hurt.

  84. makdaddie says:

    Gahahaha cant believe facebook got hacked…. jk im surprised it took this long. FB are newbs and their security sucks the balls… xtian fags

  85. aaron says:

    where exactly is the link on 4chan’s site to see this? that website is unbrowsable…

    where are the source files for this?

  86. Reddit/b says:

    For the record, I find 4chan absolutely fascinating from a pop-culture stream of consciousness standpoint. /b in particular but at this point they’ve infected pretty much all the high traffic boards over there. /b is the collective. You can ask for anything from still photos of midget porn in b/w to some guys address and some criminal/scriptkiddie/metaracist will make it their lifes mission for the next 20minutes to make it happen. They have been detectives (tracking down that kid who was torturing cats and posting the vids to youtube) pests (staging takeovers of other websites, sometimes for days,for no other reason than to be jerks) softcore porn producers(if you’re into jailbait pictures side by side with a picture of a gaping shotgun wound to the head.)

    Its like xbox live. If some 6 year old calls me a homosexual, I can either get all butthurt about it, or I can go on like it doesn’t affect me, which it doesn’t. Either way, at some point you have to make peace with the fact there are millions of stupid people out there, but as a group they can still be relevant. If you can stand to read past the nearly constant profanity, you will find it hard to look away.

  87. jim d says:

    Stephen, Don’t you find it at all ironic that you don’t want to publish your last name, yet you’re celebrating the fact that dozens (if not hundreds) of people had their privacy violated?

  88. JSK Network says:

    Thanks for setting up a blog that doesn’t look like total sh!te.

    I enjoyed the post as well. Anonymous is spreading well.

  89. anon says:

    Please note that the full name of the individual in the “Your teeth match your skin!” insult is viewable at the top of the image. You may want to edit or remove the image to protect her and yourself.

  90. Nobody says:

    Really? If you can enter someone else’s password and username that was practically *GIVEN* to you into a input box you’re a “hacker” now?

  91. How can you not support this? With your help it might have blossomed into a much more mature slaughtering of family values.

  92. Mr. Anderson says:

    Just thought I should point out that Anonymous wasn’t the first group to discover the security hole in the Christian dating site Singles.org.

    In fact, it was originally discovered by somebody named Jenn from ThisIsARecoding.com

    (<3 ya Jenn)

    Then it was posted on the PhoneLosers.org forums. So phonelosers like myself had first grabs at the exploit. :D

    Then it was posted, with Jenn’s knowledge, on PreHack (which is now called BeyondBirthday.com). Somewhere along the lines, Anonymous found it and posted it to 4chan’s /b/ imageboard.

    But just to make it clear… it was NOT originally their idea. ;)

  93. Stephen says:

    MC Lepus: I don’t visit the site, but I can understand if one section gives the whole site a bad rap.

    These days, when 4chan is in the headlines, is it not because of some outrageous/criminal event? I’m sure there are good intentions to be found within the site, but the majority of the site and what is seen in the press (the /b/ board) is 9/10 times negative.

    a 4channer: I honestly wouldn’t know. Like I said, I don’t visit the board, but everything I see originating from it looks like blatant racism at first glance. There may be a meta-joke in there, but I just see racism as one whom doesn’t visit the board let alone understand its jokes.

  94. a 4channer says:

    ‘typical racist comments’

    You realise that the ‘racism’ in 4chan is actually a meme/joke in itself right? How is a joke racist if it is actually making fun of racism?

    Never take a 4chan meme at face value. It can be a meta-joke or inside-joke, or it can be a self-parody. 4chan is more complex in it’s ways more than anyone can comprehend, including me.

  95. MC Lepus says:

    @Stephen, You defame those on 4chan who are not members of the /b/ forum,

    4chan began as a board for fans of Japaneses culture,Creative interersts and, the hackers and Anonymous forums. take a look around the rest of the board.

  96. Stephen says:

    bizlady08: 4chan is an imageboard at http://www.4chan.org. It is comprised of hackers, very bored teenagers, criminals, and members of the group Anonymous.

    The accounts were compromised through a third-party website’s security flaw, and the hackers then used the list of email addresses and passwords to compromise the email accounts. Since the dating website’s passwords and that of the corresponding usernames were the same, this was easy to do.

    (lesson to be learned: use strong and unique passwords for different sites)

    And as far as the screenshots go, I personally think it is OK just to scratch out the last names, phone numbers, and not-safe-for-works (NSFW) elements of the screenshots alone. The “one that started it all” was directly from Mashable, who used a very cheap MSPaint coverup.

    If any of the individuals within the screenshots contact me wishing for these images to be removed or further obfuscated, I would be more than happy to comply.

    Thanks for reading

  97. feafae says:

    ^^^ you don’t know what 4chan is? where have you been?

  98. bizlady08 says:

    Hey Stephen,
    Thanks for the info. What is 4chan exactly? So, these FB accounts were compromised through an unsecured 3rd-party site? I’d hate to think my FB account could be hacked so easily.

    Thanks again for taking the time to post this info. Much more insightful than what Mashable posted. In fact, I was easily able to find the FB page “that started it all” through the screen shot. Please X out the friends names to protect their privacy.

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