Hackers breaking into Ukrainian military Facebook accounts to try and make soldiers surrender, Meta says

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Hackers are breaking into Ukrainian military Facebook accounts in an attempt to make soldiers surrender, Meta has said.

The attack has attempted to break into accounts run by “dozens” of military personnel in the country, the Facebook parent company said in its latest security report.

Such attacks are being carried out by a person or group that security experts have named Ghostwriter. Meta pointed to activity by Ghostwriter in a report it published in February, but said the new attacks have happened since.

The attackers compromise email addresses and then use that to get into social media accounts, it said.

Once in, it has used that access to post “videos calling on the Army to surrender as if these posts were coming from the legitimate account holders”, it said.

Meta blocked those videos from being shared, it said.

Hackers have looked to spread false messages in the past, breaking into broadcast news networks and forcing them to claim that Ukrainian soldiers have already surrendered.

Such attacks are far from the only criminal activity focused on Ukraine. Facebook also noted that “financially motivated actors” are making use of the crisis – using fake accounts and other tactics to capitalise on the interest in updates from Ukraine but instead sending users to other websites or selling them fake merchandise.

It also posted to other security issues elsewhere in the world, including Iran, Azerbaijan, South America and the Philippines. The full report can be found on Meta’s website.