The rampage of pornographic images witnessed on Facebook earlier in the week has really called for a more tighter security measures as to the authorization level allowed for 'Friends' or 'Friends of Friends' on the social network. Imagine a situation in which a complete stranger is able to tag a user in series of unrelated pictures without express approval? What embarrassing consequences and deplorable moral status the recent rampage of nude pictures had caused unsuspecting users?

The development was attributed to hackers, and mainly the internet subculture, Anonymous who were reported to have developed a new malware, 'Fawkes Virus', which could have made the infiltration of pornographic materials on Facebook possible. However, the internet meme group refuted the accusation according to a statement released by AnonymousWiki.

Facebook had labeled the situation a 'self-XSS ( XSS is shorthand for cross-site scripting) vulnerability in the browser', but did not mention the affected browsers. The attack involved tricking users to post rogue JavaScript code into their browser, which allows an attacker to control the websites a user interacts with and uses a link disguised as seemingly innocuous.

The recent spam has again demonstrated the level of vulnerability of the social network to engineered attacks. And security researchers has long warned about a collectively developed highly sophisticated malware that is set to target Facebook, which could spread through the social network, and then allow a remote administrator to control those accounts.

But the motivation for this level of attack remains the dominant question. Even as it appears a purely malicious act, its possible a bigger and more business reason could have triggered it. Facebook, however, is reportedly putting in place systems to contain a similar attack in the future.