Facebook Attack By Anonymous Kept Many Users Logged Out For Hours [UPDATED]

[UPDATE] This article has no basis in fact. Statements from both Facebook and Anonymous have completely debunked the narrative presented here. For a full retraction and an analysis of the circumstances that led to the printing of this falsity see: https://www.valuewalk.com/2012/06/anonymous-scolds-press-groupthink-on-facebook-rumors/

Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) has had its share of problems recently. The social network is still reeling from a disastrous IPO and the issues that arose from it may not be solved for some years to come. Anonymous had no pity for the firm however. The hacking group planned and executed an interference attack on the site on Thursday evening.

The attack caused the social network to become slow for some users and to stop working completely for others. Issues continued to be reported by some users on Friday morning though most of the problems appear to have occurred in a two hour window yesterday evening.

The hacking group announced it was behind the attack using its favorite platform, the social networking website Twitter. The group posted two separate tweets that clearly claimed responsibility for the problems with Facebook. The first read “Looks like good old Facebook is having packet problems” and the second, “Oh yeah … RIP Facebook a new sound of tango down, b——,”

Tango down is generally used by Anonymous to refer to a site they have incapacitated. Despite the attack, which did point out some vulnerabilities in Facebook’s infrastructure, the social network was not hampered for all users and many could not understand the problems.

The lack of a full scale take down proves that Facebook’s teams and their security systems are, not impervious maybe, but certainly very effective. Facebook will learn from this attack and improve their systems closing holes that allow attacks like this to occur.

Despite the lack of total success Anonymous is not going away and Facebook is among their active targets. The decentralization of the group makes them close to impossible to pin down and put an end to as the arrest of several leaders showed in March this year.

Those arrests caused a lull in the operations of the group but clearly has not stopped them nor has it reduced their ambition. Anonymous will continue its operations against web sites regulating the internet by their own moral standards as a vigilante group.

Facebook may suffer from this attack to some extent but the effectiveness of their systems in reducing the vulnerability and the quickness in resolving the issue should be taken as marks for rather than against the company.

This attack proved, if anything, that Facebook is ready to combat hacking attempts. Anonymous will have to try harder next time.