Facebook said this week that hackers using stolen username and password credentials try to break into at least 600,000 accounts every day on the mammoth social networking site.
The revelation was buried in a new security announcement issued by the company on Thursday describing the virtues of its new “Trusted Friends” password restoration technique. UK-based computer security firm Sophos first noticed the data.
The Facebook blog entry includes an infographic explaining the success of the network’s efforts to beat back spam, account hijacking, and other ills. In it, Facebook says that “only 0.06 percent of 1 billion logins per day are compromised.” The site is able to precisely count the number of stolen or otherwise compromised logins because it challenges the would-be hackers with additional authentication questions, such as asking users to identify friends in pictures, said spokesman Barry Schnitt.
“(This means) 600,000 times a day, we stop a bad guy from getting access to an account even though he has guessed, phished, or stolen the login and password of an account,” Schnitt said. “This is something we’re very proud of.”
via Red Tape – Facebook says 600,000 account logins compromised every day.
