Hackers have apparently found a way to automate the creation of new Facebook profiles by breaking the challenge-response mechanism used by the site to ensure that only humans sign up for the service.

Security researcher Roger Thompson, of AVG Technologies, today said his company in recent days discovered numerous Facebook pages that were clearly created in an automated fashion using malware programs. The pages are being used to spam links pointing to malicious sites. Users who click on the link are prompted to install rogue anti-spyware tools on their systems, he said.

So far, AVG has noticed a "couple of hundred" Facebook pages that appear to have been created by an automated malware program. All of the pages contain the same profile picture but with different user names.

More: http://computerworld.com/s/article/9138780/