Scammers Hack Verified Facebook Pages to Impersonate Meta and Google

If you see a verified page, complete with the blue checkmark, on Facebook, beware it could still be a scam. According to the latest reports, scammers hacked verified Facebook pages to impersonate Meta and Google. They have also changed the name and Facebook URL of the hacked pages in the past week. Some of these pages had millions of followers. Each displays a blue verification badge that says “Facebook confirmed this profile is authentic.”

However, most concerning is that each hacked page was approved to run ads across Facebook’s network and everyone appears to have been doing so. It’s unclear just how far-reaching these scam ads went and how many Facebook users have potentially fallen victim.

Scammers Hack Verified Facebook Pages to Impersonate Meta and Google

The scam ads direct users to click a fake Google or Facebook URL, bringing them to a bogus Google Sites page impersonating the company. Once on the page, the user is directed to download supposed Facebook Ad tools or Google AI software. users were directed to a .rar file hosted on a Trello page that likely contains malware.

The largest hacked page appears to have belonged to Miss Pooja, a famous singer in India. The page has over 7 million followers. On April 29, hackers changed the page name to “Google AI.” They also changed the URL to “facebook.com/Google.BardAI2”.

This isn’t the only star from India who was targeted. Hackers also hacked the Indian singer-songwriter Babbu Maan’s verified Facebook page, with 3 million followers. Maan’s page was soon changed to “Meta Ads,” which ran Facebook ads with a similar copy as the fake Google page.

There are many other verified accounts, fooling users to download malicious apps. Facebook now tracks and publicly displays a history of name changes for verified accounts. However, this is not enough to flag some obvious scams.

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