A video on Facebook claims to offer a tool for obtaining login credentials for friends’ accounts. Instead, according to a blog post from Symantec, it hacks the person’s own account.





The scam is a video on Facebook that claims to offer a tool for obtaining login credentials for friends’ accounts. It works by directing the potential victims to a document on Google Drive. It refers people to a JavaScript code with instructions people to paste it into their browser’s console window and execute it.

Once done, the Facebook account is hijacked and used to “like” other pages and follow lists.

The type of attack is known as “self cross-site scripting,” where the user is tricked into running the malicious code themselves rather than finding it on a hacked website.

Satnam Narang, security response manager for Symantec, said: “Being able to hack someone’s Facebook password by just pasting some code into your browser sounds way too easy and should signal that this is a scam. It’s best to err on the side of caution and think twice before following instructions that ask you to paste code into your browser to hack passwords or unlock features on a website.”