Attackers hacked Facebook page for grief support and posted inappropriate images for 7 weeks

• Attackers hacked the popular Facebook page for grief support, Grief the Unspoken, and posted several disturbing images on the page.
• This included graphic images of medical procedures, disfigurements, and rescue attempts from burning vehicles.

Attackers have hacked the popular Facebook page for grief support, Grief the Unspoken, and posted several disturbing images on the page.

The big picture

Grief the Unspoken, a Facebook page which has over 520,000 followers, was recently hacked by attackers. The personal account of one of the page admins was compromised which allowed the attackers to hijack the page.

Attackers started posting distressing images on the page from May 9, 2019 for almost 7 weeks. This included graphic images of medical procedures, disfigurements, and rescue attempts from burning vehicles.

“Triggering videos can be the last thread for someone who is emotionally fragile. This hijacker is toying with the emotions of a vulnerable group of people. Facebook has to take action,” Ms. Cheldelin Fell, founder of the International Grief Institute said.

The administrators of the page reported the issue to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center. They reported the issue through Facebook's channels, as well as personally tagged Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in their description. However, Facebook failed to respond in a timely manner to the issue.

The response

After nearly two months, Facebook has now resolved the problem. The hijacked page has been restored and the page admins got back access to their page. However, earlier this month, the admins set up a new page for grief support.

“As soon as we learned of this issue, we secured the page and restored access to the proper owners. The previous reports we received about the page were related to inappropriate conduct. Once we became aware of the real problem, we fixed it,” a spokesperson for Facebook told the New York Times.