The Latest in IT Security

Bogus Bank of America Google Plus page attacks their reputation

15
Nov
2011

BoA Foreclosed Creative Commons photo courtesy of scad_lo's Flickr photostreamAs the Occupy Wall Street movement continues, hackers have turned to attacking some of the financial institutions protesters feel are responsible for their situation.

The web page representing Bank of America on the Google Plus service gives the appearance that it was hacked.

It does not appear this page was actually controlled by Bank of America (BoA), rather it seems to have been created by the attackers by tricking Google into giving them a business page under BoA’s name.

Bogus Bank of America About page on Google Plus

The attackers have put quite a bit of effort into painting BoA in a bad light. They have posted at least 10 articles which say things like:

“Living under a tarp? I am too. My TARP is much bigger, however, and billions of dollars more expensive.”

Fake BoA posts on Google Plus

The shenanigans appear to have started on November 8th, right after Google launched the official service for businesses to use the social network.

We have not seen a lot of abuse on the Google Plus service to date, but I am sure this incident is just the tip of the iceberg.

Google may have a real names only policy, but apparently their verification process leaves something to be desired.

Creative Commons photo of Bank of Foreclosed courtesy of scad_lo’s Flickr photostream.

Leave a reply


Categories

FRIDAY, APRIL 19, 2024
WHITE PAPERS

Mission-Critical Broadband – Why Governments Should Partner with Commercial Operators:
Many governments embrace mobile network operator (MNO) networks as ...

ARA at Scale: How to Choose a Solution That Grows With Your Needs:
Application release automation (ARA) tools enable best practices in...

The Multi-Model Database:
Part of the “new normal” where data and cloud applications are ...

Featured

Archives

Latest Comments