Team Swastika group hacks 10,000 global Facebook account details

Security experts are warning web users to ensure they use strong passwords and vary their credentials from site to site after a new hacking group published log-in details of what it claimed to be more than 10,000 Facebook users.

Trend Micro's director of security research, Rik Ferguson, explained in a blog post that the "Team Swastika" group published the details to Pastebin "without context and with no indication of the means by which they were stolen".

Although the post has been removed by the data sharing service, Ferguson managed to take a screen grab of the stolen credentials.

He said that the account details come from all over the world, with the majority of users employing simple or easy-to-guess passwords.

"The ongoing effect of such a large-scale compromise can be disastrous for affected users, particularly if the password is shared for multiple accounts," Ferguson added.

"It can lead to compromise of the victim's email account which can act as the skeleton key for many other online services, as any password reset procedure will normally pass through the account owner's email inbox for verification. Regaining control of a compromised account can be a costly and time-consuming process."

Ferguson urged users to create a unique and complex password for every site they use, using upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters.

"Devise a way to differentiate your password for each site you use, for example putting the first and last letters of the web site name at the beginning and end of your initial complex password, making it unique yet easy to remember," he said.

Ferguson also cautioned that security or password reset questions are only effective if the user is the only person who can answer the question.

For its part, Facebook was keen to stress it had not been the subject of a hack.

"This does not represent a hack of Facebook or anyone's Facebook profiles," said a spokesperson.

"Our security experts have reviewed this data and found it to be a set of
e-mail and password combinations that are not associated with any live
Facebook accounts."

Team Swastika has only just arrived on the hacking scene but the group has already published database tables and user credentials stolen from the Indian Embassy in Nepal and the Bhutan government, probably by SQL injection attack.

Ferguson told V3 he has contacted the group for more information but as yet its motivation and attack methodology remain unconfirmed.