Mashable has confirmed that a number of fake Facebook business pages are impersonating companies like Google and even Meta.
For all pages checked, the verified Facebook pages appear to have been hacked, with the page name and Facebook URL changed in the past week. Some of these pages had millions of followers. Each page displays a blue verified badge that says “Facebook has verified this profile as authentic.” What's most disturbing is that each hacked page was approved to run ads across the Facebook network, and each one apparently did. It's unclear how widespread these fraudulent ads were and how many Facebook users potentially fell victim.
Fake ads on Facebook: Alleged Google pages lure people with malware
The deceptive ads direct users to click on a fake Google or Facebook URL, where they are taken to a fake Google page that imitates the company. Once on the page, the user is instructed to download supposed Facebook ad tools or Google AI software, depending on which ad they clicked on. In the file links reviewed by Mashable, users were directed to a .rar file hosted on a Trello page that most likely contains malware.
In each case, site managers from different countries were added to these hacked sites that had no connection to the original site owners' location. Although this in itself is not automatic since social media managers can be anywhere, each hacked page contained three page managers from Vietnam, a hotspot for fraudulent activity on Facebook.
Abused Popularity: Hacked Facebook Pages with Massive Follower Count
The largest site hacked apparently belonged to Miss Pooja, a well-known singer in India. The page had over 7 million followers. On April 29, the site name was changed to “Google AI.” The URL has also been changed to “facebook.com/Google.BardAI2”.

On May 3, the site began running ads on Facebook, including an ad that read “NOTIFICATION! This is the only official Google Bard PAGE with verification, all other pages are fake." The ads directed users to domains such as "aifuture.wiki" and "bardai.bio."

When a user clicked on one of these links, they were redirected to one of the aforementioned fake Google Sites pages that pretended to be an official Google website. For these particular ads, the user was taken to a page titled “Google AI Marketing” where they were asked to download “Google AI Marketing.” Clicking on this link would automatically download a malicious file called “Google_AI_Marketing.rar” hosted on Trello, a popular project management tool.
Warnings about fake Facebook pages: Other prominent targets in India and Turkey
Miss Pooja wasn't the only star from India to be targeted. Indian singer-songwriter Babbu Maan also had his verified Facebook page with 3 million followers, which has now also been hacked. Maan's page was soon changed to "Meta Ads," which served Facebook ads with similar text to the fake Google page. However, these ads redirected users to a “metaadstools.com” domain.
The verified page of Düzce Üniversitesi, a university in Turkey, was also hacked with over 28,000 followers. The Facebook page was also quickly disguised as an official “Meta Ads” page, including the Meta logo as a profile picture. She also started placing ads, but with the domain “fbadstools.com”.
Both hacked meta-spoofing sites attempted to trick users into downloading a “Meta Ads Manager” tool. The link would download a malicious file titled “Facebook_Ads_Manager.rar,” which was also hosted on Trello.
In recent days, warnings about these fake sites have spread across various Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and social media groups on Facebook. Matt Navarra, a well-known social media consultant, has also highlighted the issue in recent days.
Meta uses resources to combat fraud and hacks, but security gaps remain
“We invest significant resources in detecting and preventing fraud and hacks,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement to Mashable. “Although many of the improvements we've made are difficult to detect - because they minimize problems in the first place - fraudsters continue to try to circumvent our security measures. We regularly improve our methods to combat these frauds and have established teams dedicated to improving support for individuals and businesses.”
It's also worth noting that just this week, Meta a security report on the worrying new types of malware discovered on its platform and the web as a whole. Some of the threats described by Meta overlap with the types of scams promoted by these sites.
All of the hacked Facebook pages analyzed by Mashable have now been removed from the platform.
Although it appears that the hacked Facebook pages were all previously verified by Facebook before the new paid verification system Meta Verified was introduced, the new feature that allows users to pay for a blue checkmark could potentially cause additional problems .
Even if Meta specifically verifies each site, these recent hacks show how scammers can take over an existing verified site to deceive users. And now that anyone can apply for verification for $15, the pool of potential targets for hackers to continue their scams has grown significantly.
Source:
Mashable
Also read: Phishing guide: protect yourself and your data from fraudulent attacks
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