It’s spam, not Iran

Breach was fault of junk mailers: Facebook

The Facebook breach that hit the accounts of 30 million users was not, it turns out, the work of an adversarial nation-state like Iran or North Korea.

Instead, the social network has tentatively concluded that it was spammers looking to make money who were behind Facebook’s largestever data theft, according to a Thursday report.

The hackers — who obtained the contact information and personal data of millions of users — were a group of Facebook and Instagram spammers who presented themselves as a digital marketing company, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed sources.

They stole the data by using an automated program that moved from one friend’s profile to the next, vacuuming up data including birthdates, friends lists, the last 10 places they checked into on the social network and their 15 most recent searches.

Their activities were previously known to Facebook’s security team, according to the report.

The breach has left users more vulnerable to targeted phishing attacks and could deepen unease about using a site whose privacy and security practices have been called into question by a number of scandals, cyber- security experts and financial analysts have said.

Facebook said it was conducting an internal probe into the incident and last week cut the number of affected users from its original estimate of 50 million after investigators reviewed activity on accounts that may have been affected.

The report comes as Facebook is working to rid its platform of bad actors. The social network on Thursday revealed the “War Room” it has created to fight election interference around the world.

The room, located in Facebook’s Palo Alto, Calif., headquarters, is staffed 24 hours a day by dozens of employees who are constantly monitoring its platform for any signs of malicious manipulation.

Facebook shares fell 2.8 percent, to $154.92.