Facebook victim of porn spam attack

PALO ALTO, Calif., Nov. 15 (UPI) -- A spam attack on the social networking site Facebook has left its news feeds flooded with pornography and violent images, company officials said.

"Explicit and violent" images had been flooding the news feeds of Facebook users, included hardcore porn, Photoshopped images of celebrities in sexual positions, images of "extreme violence" and at least one image of an abused dog, CNN reported Tuesday.

Graham Cluley, a consultant with Web security firm Sophos, said it wasn't clear Tuesday how the images were spreading.

Hackers may have compromised the accounts of users with weak passwords or tricked people into installing malicious code, he said.

"What's clear," Cluley wrote in a Sophos blog, "is that mischief-makers are upsetting many Facebook users and making the social networking site far from a family-friendly place."

A possible source of the attack is the Anonyous hacker group, members of which have recently been threatening Facebook, British tech publication The Register reported.