Messages from 81,000 hacked Facebook accounts reportedly up for sale

Facebook is hot waters yet again as reports suggest it underwent another hack in which private messages from at least 81,000 accounts are being put up for sale.

Reportedly, around 81,000 Facebook accounts were hacked where their private messages are being offered to sell by hackers. Many of the accounts belonged to users from Ukraine and Russia, however some of them are from Brazil, UK, US along with other countries, reported BBC News.

The hackers claim to have details from 120 million accounts and are offering to sell them at 10 cents per account. The news website confirmed that five Russian users acknowledged to have their messages among a sample published containing the private messages.

Around 50mn Facebook accounts affected in latest hack

After investigation of the claims, the social media site said that it suspects the account data was collected by ‘malicious browser extension’ that can range from online shopping assistants to ad blockers.

“We have contacted browser makers to ensure that known malicious extensions are no longer available to download in their stores and to share information that could help identify additional extensions that may be related,” Guy Rosen, Facebook’s vice president of product management, said in a statement.

“We have also contacted law enforcement and have worked with local authorities to remove the website that displayed information from Facebook accounts.”

Furthermore, Rosen suggested that users should check any browsers extensions they have installed and remove any that they don’t fully trust.