Facebook takes action against two Bangladeshi hacker groups

Representational imagePhoto: Reuters

The Facebook authorities have taken measures against ‘two separate groups of hackers -- APT32 in Vietnam and a group based in Bangladesh -- for allegedly distributing malware and hacking people’s accounts across the internet.’

“These two unconnected groups targeted people on our platform and elsewhere on the internet using very different tactics. The operation from Vietnam focused primarily on spreading malware to its targets, whereas the operation from Bangladesh focused on compromising accounts across platforms and coordinating reporting to get targeted accounts and Pages removed from Facebook,” reports Facebook Newsroom on Thursday.

Facebook stated that it has already removed the hacker groups’ ‘ability to use their infrastructure’ as part of the measurement.

It also said, “The Bangladesh-based group targeted local activists, journalists and religious minorities, including those living abroad, to compromise their accounts and have some of them disabled by Facebook for violating our Community Standards. Our investigation linked this activity to two non-profit organizations in Bangladesh: Don’s Team (also known as Defense of Nation) and the Crime Research and Analysis Foundation (CRAF). They appeared to be operating across a number of internet services.”

“Don’s Team and CRAF collaborated to report people on Facebook for fictitious violations of our Community Standards, including alleged impersonation, intellectual property infringements, nudity and terrorism,” it added.