Indian singers Miss Pooja, Babbu Maan's Facebook pages hacked to impersonate Meta and Google

A number of verified pages on Facebook with blue checkmarks have been impersonating none other than Meta and Google.

The verified Facebook pages appear to have been hacked, with their page name and Facebook URL changed in the past week, Mashable reported.

Some of these pages had millions of followers. They also display a blue verification badge stating "Facebook confirmed this profile is authentic".

The most concerning element of such impersonation is that each hacked page was approved to run advertisements across Facebook's network and every one appears to have been doing so, the Mashable report added.

So far, it remains unclear just how far reaching these scam ads went and how many Facebook users have potentially fallen victim.

Indian singers Miss Pooja, Babbu Maan's Facebook pages targeted by hacks

According to Mashable, the largest hacked page appears to have belonged to Miss Pooja, a famous singer in India.

The page has over 7 million followers. On April 29, the page name was changed to "Google AI." The URL was also changed to "facebook.com/Google.BardAI2" that ran Facebook ads leading to a page impersonating as Google.

Other than Miss Pooja, Indian singer Babbu Maan's Facebook page also appears to have been hacked. With 3 million followers, Maan's page was changed to 'Meta Ads, which also ran Facebook ads similar to fake Google page.

At the time of filing this report, the Facebook pages that once belonged to Miss Pooja and Babbu Maan, were not publicly available, and appear to have been removed from the platform.

Miss Pooja and Babbu Maan are famed for their acclaimed singing acumen, mostly in and around the Indianand Pakistani states of Punjab and the vast South Asian diaspora settled around the world. While Pooja has been known for breaking the fortress in the male-dominated Punjabi pop scene, Maan has continued to elevate hisfan-base rightbefore the dawn of mobile internet took over the trend of music video cassettes in the world's fifth largest economy.

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The latest hacks show how scammers can take over an existing verified page to trick users.

Facebook now tracks and publicly displays a history of name changes for verified accounts. The feature has been hailed as a welcome bit of transparency but the safeguard still doesn't appear enough to flag some obvious scams.

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