Were you suddenly logged out of your Facebook account on Friday (September 28) and asked to login again? If you were, then you are not alone. Facebook has announced that hackers have managed to steal at least 50 million digital logins of their users’ accounts including Malaysians. Alamak, we are always on Facebook 24/7!
Source: Adweek
The company has experienced a breach incident before which involved a third-party, but this time, the fault is because of Facebook’s own vulnerability, BBC News reported. They have also secured another 40 million accounts as a “precautionary measure.” Facebook has more than 2.2 billion active users.
Source: Popular Science
This latest breach has exposed a huge flaw and here are the details that you need to know in light of the incident, based on a report by Popular Science:
- The breach actually allows hackers to access other accounts that utilise Facebook’s system. This could potentially mean other major sites, such as Airbnb and Tinder, may also be affected
- Facebook is unable to determine whether any of the accounts’ information has been misused by the hackers
- Facebook has yet to detect the hacker’s location or any specific victims have that been targeted
- The vulnerability had existed since July 2017 but was only identified by Facebook on Tuesday (September 25) after noticing a spike in the usage of the “view as” privacy feature function
- The “View As” feature is designed to allow users to experience how their privacy settings look to another person but the function has accidentally placed the wrong digital code which is similar to a browser cookie. This will potentially expose private messages, photos and posts
- It was explained that the attackers discovered multiple bugs in the feature that “allowed them to steal Facebook access tokens, which they could then use to take over people’s accounts”
- The company has disabled the “View As” function currently which will prevent any further attempts of hacking.
- Facebook has also released a statement saying that you don’t have to change your password as the hackers used a different way to access your account
- Any credit card information stored in your account is also safe
Source: Facebook
Amongst the 50 million accounts that were affected, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and its chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg are in the list. Zuckerberg has responded in a conference call on Friday condemning the hackers and saying that the firm took security seriously.
Although vice-president of product management from Facebook, Guy Rosen has stated that investigation is currently underway and all measures to secure your account have been taken, it would not hurt if you apply extra measures to ensure your account is safe!
Were you one of the people affected? Let us know in the comments section!
Also read: Penang Plans on Installing Face Recognition Cameras in Public to Detect Criminals
