A hacker who goes by the moniker ‘Kirlios’ is understood to be attempting to sell 1.5m Facebook identities after claiming he successfully stole the identities of one out of every 300 Facebook users.
Kirlios is reported to have been offering to sell Facebook identities for US$25 per 1,000 for users with fewer than 10 friends and US$45 for users with more than 10 friends.
According to Rick Howard, the director of cyber intelligence at VeriSign, Kirlios has already sold close to 700,000 of the identities online.
Howard told the New York Times that it is not yet apparent if the identities are legitimate. If it is indeed a scam then Kirlios should have made US$25,000 by now.
Kirlios, from Russia, is understood to have used a New Zealand email address and this is being investigated by the National Cyber Crime Centre in that country.
By John Kennedy
Photo: A hacker known as Kirlios has sold nearly 700,000 of Facebook identities online, the director of cyber intelligence at VeriSign Rick Howard has said