Facebook Network Is Breached with Hack Affecting 50 Million Users

by Muhammad Irfan Raza
Published: Last Updated on

Facebook faces a major hack on Friday that affected 50 million peoples. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said “patched the issue last night and are taking precautionary measures” to avoid any further damage.

What Did They Get?

The hackers were able to get data of 50 million accounts and access tokens were used to keep people logged into Facebook. Even if they do don’t re-enter their passwords, explained by Guy Rosen, Vice President of Product Managment.

The access token allows hackers to take almost full control of a person’s account and they can read messages, comments and share information with others.

This is a different kind of attack compared to the Cambridge Analytica scandal in which researchers had an app to get information from the social media giant. And provide that data to political consulting firm violation Facebook policies. Cambridge Analytica employees used Facebook user data to send personalized messages to affect political beliefs of peoples.

Reported to Whome?

About Facebook’s latest data hack, Zuckerberg said, “The investigation is still very early,” and “We do not yet know if any of the accounts were actually misused.”

Rosen also said Facebook has notified FBI and law enforcement agencies about the hack and explained three separate software bugs within Facebook’s web infrastructure. He also mentions attackers exploited the bugs and carried the attack.

Still, Rosen said, “it is hard to determine who is behind this.”

“We may never know,” Rosen said.

This hack is a major step back for Facebook to get back users trust.

Earlier this week, the co-founders of Facebook-owned Instagram abruptly announced they were leaving, reportedly due to disagreements with Facebook’s management team taking more control of the popular photo-sharing app.

Meanwhile, WhatsApp co-founder and former Facebook employee Brian Action also expressed resentment with Facebook executives in an interview with Forbes published this week over the company’s increasing influence on the messaging app, which Facebook bought in 2014 for $19 billion. Facebook executive David Marcus responded to Action’s interview and called him “low class.”

About Facebook’s latest data blunder, U.S. Senator Mark Warner said that it “is another sobering indicator that Congress needs to step up and take action to protect the privacy and security of social media users.”

Facebook, when asked by a reporter about why should users continue to trust company after such missteps? Zuckerberg reiterated that the company takes security issues seriously, patched the latest vulnerability, and took additional precautionary measures.

“Security is an arms race,” Zuckerberg said.

Facebook shares dropped nearly 3% in midday trading on Friday to $164.30.

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