Is Facebook a target of sophisticated hacking suspected from China?

joseph menn , tim reid | reuters – 4 hours

san francisco/los angeles (reuters) - facebook inc said on friday hackers had infiltrated of employees' laptops in recent weeks, making world's no.1 social network latest victim of wave of cyber attacks, many of have been traced china.

said none of users' data compromised in attack, occurred after handful of employees visited website last month infected machines so-called malware, according post on facebook's official blog released before three-day u.s. president's day weekend.

"as discovered presence of malware, remediated infected machines, informed law enforcement, , began significant investigation continues day," facebook said.

not clear why facebook waited until announce incident. facebook declined comment on reason or origin of attack.

security expert @ company knowledge of matter said told facebook attack appeared have originated in china.

attack on facebook, says has more 1 billion members, underscores growing threat of cyber attacks aimed @ broad variety of targets.

twitter, micro blogging social network, said earlier month had been hacked , 250,000 user accounts potentially compromised, attackers gaining access information, including user names , email addresses.

newspaper websites, including of new york times, washington post , wall street journal, have been infiltrated. attacks attributed news organizations chinese hackers targeting coverage of china.

earlier week, u.s. president barack obama issued executive order seeking better protection of country's critical infrastructure cyber attacks.

facebook noted in blog post not alone in attack, , "others attacked , infiltrated well," although did not specify who.

federal bureau of investigation declined comment, while u.s. department of homeland security did not return call seeking comment.

in blog post, facebook described attack "zero-day" attack, considered among sophisticated , dangerous types of computer hacks. zero-day attacks, discovered or disclosed targets, costly launch , suggest government involvement.

while facebook said no user data compromised, incident raise consumer concerns privacy , vulnerability of personal information stored within social network.

facebook has made several privacy missteps in past because of way handled user data. settled privacy investigation federal regulators in 2011.

according 1 person familiar situation, type of information on employee laptops compromised included "snippets" of facebook source code , employee emails.

facebook said spotted suspicious file , traced employee's laptop. after conducting forensic examination of laptop, facebook said identified malicious file, searched company-wide , identified "several other compromised employee laptops".

person briefed on matter said first facebook employee had been infected via website coding strategies discussed.

company said identified unseen attempt bypass built-in cyber defenses , new protections added on feb 1.

because attack used third-party website, might have been early-stage attempt penetrate many companies possible.

if followed established patterns, attackers learn people , computer networks @ infected companies. use data in more targeted attacks steal source code , other intellectual property.

fear such popular website hackers use central controls infect wide swathes of user base @ once.

in january 2010, google reported had been penetrated via "zero-day" flaw in older version of internet explorer web browser. attackers seeking source code , interested in chinese dissidents. google reduced operations in china result.

by joseph menn , tim reid | reuters – 4 hours san francisco/los angeles (reuters) - facebook inc said on friday hackers had infiltrated of employees' laptops in recent weeks, making world's no.1 social network latest victim of wave of cyber attacks, many of have been traced to...

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