"Facebook" sues two Ukrainian men for stealing user data

Facebook has filed a lawsuit against two Ukrainians who allegedly used a contest to steal private user data and to include advertisements in the "latest news".

The lawsuit, filed Friday, accuses Gleb Slutchevsky and Andrey Gorbachev of operating a hacker system for years, according to The Virg Technology website.

Between 2017 and 2018, the two men urged users to install harmful browser plug-ins following promises of "personal and popular" laps or tests, which affected nearly 63,000 Facebook users. Slutchevsky and Gorbachev would run four Web applications, including Supertest and FQuiz, which mainly targeted Russian and Ukrainian users.

According to the court documents, the apps offered personal contests such as "Who are you modern vampires?" And "Do you have the royal blood?"

Web applications have used the Facebook login feature and are committed to collecting only limited information. However, users are then asked to install Web browser add-ons that allow hackers to access Facebook and other social network accounts.

The lawsuit alleges that hackers stole public profile information and friends' lists that are not visible to the public, while posting their own ads instead of official ads approved by Facebook. The hijackers may have been associated with the sale of 81,000 private messages to users last year.