Mega ad phishing campaign hits over 6.15 lakh Facebook users

Agencies

December 31, 2020

Washington, Dec 31: Cybersecurity researchers have unearthed a large-scale ad phishing campaign that has compromised accounts of more than 6.15 lakh Facebook users from at least 50 countries, by exploiting the pages of open source repository GitHub.

The list of affected users is growing at a rapid pace of more than a 100 entries per minute, according to ThreatNix, a Nepal-based cybersecurity firm.

The researchers first came across the phishing campaign through a sponsored Facebook post that was offering 3GB mobile data from Nepal Telecom and redirecting to a phishing site hosted on GitHub pages.

The page that posted the ad was using the profile picture and name of Nepal Telecom and was almost indistinguishable from the legitimate page.

"We saw similar Facebook posts targeting Facebook users from Tunisia, Egypt, Philippines, Pakistan, Norway, Malaysia etc," the firm claimed in a statement this week.

According to the firm, the ad phishing campaign is using localised Facebook posts and pages spoofing legitimate entities and targeted ads for specific countries.

Links within these posts then redirected to a static Github page website that contained a login panel for Facebook.

"All these static GitHub pages forwarded the phished credentials to two endpoints one to a Firestore database and another to a domain owned by the phishing group," the researchers noted.

"We discovered almost 500 GitHub repositories containing phishing pages that are a part of the same phishing campaign".

Facebook or GitHub was yet to comment on the ThreatNix report.

ThreatNix said that it is working on taking down the phishing infrastructure by collaborating with relevant authorities "as such we are withholding the information related to the domains until then".

While Facebook takes measures to make sure that such phishing pages are not approved for ads, in this case, the scammers were using Bitly link's which initially must have pointed to a benign page and once the ad was approved, was modified to point to the phishing domain, the researchers explained.

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Pak jail authorities say Imran Khan is alive and healthy after ‘murder’ rumours spark panic

News Network

November 27,2025

Authorities at Pakistan’s high-security Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi on Wednesday dismissed speculation about the condition of imprisoned former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, rejecting rumours that he had been moved out of the facility or was in danger. Officials said Khan was in “good health” and described the viral death claims as “baseless.”

“There is no truth to reports about his transfer from Adiala Jail,” the Rawalpindi prison administration said in a statement, according to Geo News. “He is fully healthy and receiving complete medical attention.”

Amid swirling rumours on social media, Imran Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), urged the federal government to issue an official clarification and demanded that authorities allow his family to meet him immediately, Dawn reported.

The frenzy began after Khan’s three sisters called for an impartial probe into what they described as a “brutal” police assault on them and other PTI supporters outside Adiala Jail last week. Soon after, several social media handles circulated unverified claims alleging that Khan had been “killed” inside the prison.

The rumours intensified when a handle named “Afghanistan Times” claimed that “credible sources” had confirmed Khan’s “murder” and that his body had been moved out of the jail — allegations that have not been verified by any credible agency.

Imran Khan, PTI’s patron-in-chief, has been lodged in the Rawalpindi prison since August 2023 in multiple cases. For over a month, an undeclared restriction has prevented family members and senior PTI leaders from meeting him. Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi has reportedly been denied access despite making seven attempts.

In a letter to Punjab Police Chief Usman Anwar, Khan’s sisters — Noreen Niazi, Aleema Khan, and Dr. Uzma Khan — said they were “peacefully protesting” outside the jail when police allegedly launched an unprovoked assault after streetlights were switched off.

“At 71, I was seized by my hair, thrown to the ground and dragged across the road,” Noreen Niazi said, alleging that other women present were also slapped and manhandled.

Adiala Jail officials reiterated that speculation over Imran Khan’s health was unfounded and insisted that his well-being was being ensured, Geo News reported.

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