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Frequent Facebook hacks no big deal
Mon, 18th Feb 2013
FYI, this story is more than a year old

Tis the season to be hacked it would seem, with Facebook coming under threat from a "sophisticated attack" last month.

But the site, thriving from its very own hacking culture, remained bullish about the damage caused, finding no evidence any user data was compromised.

The attack occurred when a handful of employees visited a mobile developer website that was compromised.

Facebook's security team says the compromised website hosted an exploit which then allowed malware to be installed on these employee laptops, which were fully-patched and running up-to-date anti-virus software.

"As soon as we discovered the presence of the malware, we remediated all infected machines, informed law enforcement, and began a significant investigation that continues to this day," Facebook Security says.

"Facebook, like every significant internet service, is frequently targeted by those who want to disrupt or access our data and infrastructure.

"As such, we invest heavily in preventing, detecting, and responding to threats that target our infrastructure, and we never stop working to protect the people who use our service.

"The vast majority of the time, we are successful in preventing harm before it happens, and our security team works to quickly and effectively investigate and stop abuse."

As part of Facebook's ongoing investigation, it is working in-house with internal engineering teams, along with security teams at other companies, and with law enforcement authorities to prevent similar incidents in the future.