Thursday, Apr 30, 2009    Text size: 

It's an old one: The scam tries to steal username and password combinations, this time in the form of a ubiquitous message asking users to "look at this" The message then directs unsuspecting people to the URL FBStarter.com. Yesterday it was FBAction.net, but the Facebook brass quickly blocked that domain.

The new page, FBStarter.com, looks like a regular Facebook login page and even includes some hard-coded HTML links to real Facebook pages to add to the illusion.

Facebook has already responded to the attack by blocking the domain FBStarter.com.

"We’re deleting that URL from walls and inboxes," a representative said. "We’ve also blocked access to the URL so if someone does find it on Facebook (on their wall, in their inbox, or in an email notification) it won’t send them to the destination. Finally, we’ll automatically reset the password on any account that sent the malicious link. Thus, the data becomes useless to the bad guys very quickly."

Facebook has blocked the domain from its sharing option, in which users can share hyperlinks with their friends with one click.

The scammers are trying to thwart Facebook, though, by sending messages with the domain in non-hyperlinked plaintext.

Acccording to TechCrunch.com, FBStarter is the top item on Google's trends tracker this morning.

Tech analyst Erick Schonfeld said that the solution to phishing is simple: Change your password.

Social-networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter have all become popular ways for adult industry performers and professionals to stay in touch and promote themselves.