A tool has been released which allows the user to take control of a strangers’ Facebook account.

But the computer industry is undecided as to whether the tool, called FBController and designed by an Indian cyber security enthusiast, is really designed to highlight flaws in Facebook, or as a hackers dream.

The designer himself said he created the tool only as a proof of concept and that it’s creation had provided him with a great deal of excitement.

It is not a straightforward tool, because it relies on getting hold of the targets’ session cookies. The tool firstly looks at the communications between Facebook and the computers that use it, and then combines that with the cookie data, before hijacking an account.

Cookies are actually lifted using a different number of techniques, including network sniffing.

A computer security expert believed that the real menace behind the tool was that it could control a number of hijacked Facebook accounts at one time. For him, this confirmed that a large number of Facebook accounts had already been seriously compromised and that the hackers were now looking at ways of taking control of these accounts en masse and implementing their evil acts.

Facebook were said to be aware of the tool’s existence, but that it did not affect their ability to detect and combat an attack from malicious malware.

Guest Article by Neil Camp

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