Porn spam attack hits Facebook

Facebook in Germany has been hit by a wave of spam flooding users' pages with graphic pictures depicting sex and violence.

The social networking site said most had now been stopped, but people need to remain vigilant to keep their accounts from being hijacked.

Facebook in Germany said the latest attack tricked users into pasting and executing malicious software in their browser bar, exploiting a vulnerability that caused them to unknowingly share the content.

"Our team responded quickly and we have eliminated most of the spam caused by this attack," Facebook said. "We are now working to improve our systems to better defend against similar attacks in the future."

It said no user data or accounts were compromised during the attack.

Facebook said it built safeguards to shut down the malicious pages and accounts that attempt to exploit the vulnerability.

"Protecting the people who use Facebook from spam and malicious content is a top priority for us," it said.

Meanwhile Facebook warned users to never cut and paste unknown code into a browser's address bar, and to always use an up-to-date browser, as well as to report any suspicious content.