1,500,000 Facebook users can breathe a little easier

Remember the post last week about the guy who claims he had 1,500,000 Facebook user ids for sale?

Facebook just outed him. Ends up “Kirillos” has some ids, but nowhere near as many as claimed (or so says Facebook). Robert McMillan at ComputerWorld has the details:

According to VeriSign, Kirllos wanted between $25 and $45 per 1,000 accounts, depending on the quality of the Facebook user’s connections.

Kirllos appeared to have sold close to 700,000 accounts, although nobody knew for sure if his claims were legitimate…

“We have determined Kirllos’ identity through IP addresses, online accounts, and other information and believe that he’s very likely a low-level actor,” said Facebook Spokesman Simon Axten, in an e-mail interview.

Axten wouldn’t name Kirllos, but he said that the hacker is based out of Russia.

And while Kirllos does appear to have hacked accounts — probably through a phishing attack or by placing malicious code on victims’ computers — but he probably obtained only a few thousand credentials, Axten said.

Do the math. 700,000 accounts at $25 to $45 per thou adds up to a whole lotta rubles. Not bad for a few days’ work.

Oh. And Facebook apparently paid for some of those 700,000 accounts.