According to Facebook, the Recent Hacking Might Have Resulted in 50 Million Accounts Being Exposed!
In a shocking turn of events on Friday last week, hackers managed to hack the digital login codes of Facebook, giving them the power to control over 50 million user accounts.
This is now considered the worst security breach in Facebook’s history. One of the main reasons is because it led to undocumented cases of high-level access. Only adding salt to injury to what can only be described as a disastrous year for the company’s reputation.
Facebook, which has a user base exceeding 2.2 billion users on a monthly basis, has issued out a statement saying that it is yet to figure out whether the attacker tampered with any of the accounts, or even used some personal information for their own benefits.
Attacker Unknown
Additionally, the company is yet to figure out the location of the given attacker, or if particular victims were singled out for the given attack. That being said, Facebook’s initial review strongly suggests that the attack had a broad spectrum.
As a matter of fact, Facebook’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg documented the incident as quite serious while discussing with reporters and journalists in a press conference.
That being said, one of Facebook’s spokesperson has confirmed that indeed Mark Zuckerberg’s account, together with that of Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, have been affected by the shocking hack.
After news of the hack made headlines, it took a toll on Facebook’s share value, with the shares falling by an impressive 2.6 percent, causing a major shakeup on Wall Street that affected the stock indexes.
Manipulation at Its Highest Order
Moreover, Facebook was in the tabloids at the beginning of the year after the details of over 87 million users were manipulated to access their political information through the use of data collection firm Cambridge Analytica.
When such a disclosure was released, it has resulted in the government providing inquiries on the status of the company’s privacy requirements around the globe. The news was so severe that it resulted in the #deleteFacebook that was a social movement created among Facebook consumers.
Additionally, U.S. lawmakers further commented on the hack on Friday, calling for more legislation on privacy to be applied.
According to U.S. Democratic Senator Mark Warner, he says that this is another strong indicator that Congress requires to step up its security and privacy of social media, especially for its users.
FTCC Wants Answers
The situation is seen as quite dire for Facebook, to the point where Rohit Chopra, Federal Trade Commission Commissioner, declared that he wants answers to the story.
Facebook’s latest vulnerability to attacks has been present since July 2017. However, the company first came across it on Tuesday last week after it spotted a massive increase in the number of views using its ‘privacy feature’ around Sept 16.
As a matter of fact, the feature ‘View as’ is normally used to verify the privacy settings to enable individuals to see what the profile of someone else looks like.
The feature inadvertently provides individuals with devices an error in their digital code, which, similar to cookies for browsers, enables users to stay signed in to a particular service across multiple platforms.
‘View’ Feature Hack
That being said, such a code can enable a person using the ‘view’ feature to browse and post in another individual’s Facebook account, resulting in the exposure of private posts, photos, and messages.
The attacker can also gain full access to an individual’s Facebook account by using third-party websites or apps, especially if they logged in while using their Facebook credentials.
According to Darktrace’s director of cyber intelligence, Mr. Jistin Fier, the implications of such a setup can be catastrophic.
As a matter of fact, the vice president in charge of security at Facebook, Guy Rosen, said that the flaw was a complicated one, specifically by the fact that there were over three massive failings.
In fact, such a feature such as a video upload automatically showing on another’s user’s profile when it was accessed via the ‘view as’ option was something that was not supposed to happen, as Rosen explained to reporters while in a conference call.
This alone would not be a big issue if it wasn’t for the fact that the placement of the video mistakenly trigged the inclusion of the powerful login code.
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