Facebook hack exposes personal information of 50 million users.
Not even the internet giant Facebook is immune to modern data security breaches. The Facebook hack was announced on September 28th and said to have compromised the personal information of nearly 50 million users. This particular breach is on par with the Uber Data Breach that affected nearly 57 million users last year. Facebook discovered the breach this week and per Mark Zuckerberg; “This is a really serious security issue and we’re taking it really seriously.” Facebook continues to work with authorities and its staff to determine the full extent of the data breach.
WHO is at risk?
Facebook is just beginning the investigation of the data compromise. However, it is known that at least 50 million people are affected. Plus, an additional 40 million who used the particular feature that was vulnerable to hacking. Facebook serves 2 billion users through its platforms and will continue to diagnose the impact to other users. Those that have already been identified as compromised have been automatically logged out and will be forced to change passwords upon login. This is a common safety measure when a hack like this happens.
WHAT should you do?
IDP Deals recommends that Facebook users change their password and forcefully logout all of their user sessions, at a minimum. Changing your password for Facebook, and other online sites, should be done on a regular basis as best practice as well. In addition, review your Facebook user activity to make sure nothing was done to your account on your behalf. See below for the details on how to access these pages in Facebook.
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Change Facebook password immediately.
- When logged in, click on the small “down arrow” in the upper right of the page.
- Click on “Settings“.
- Next, click on “Security and Login” located in the left menu.
- Then, click the “Edit” button next to “Change Password“.
- Finally, fill in the fields for your new password and follow the prompts.
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Logout all active sessions.
- Navigate to the “Security and Login” page, per the above instructions.
- View logged in sessions under “Where You’re Logged In“.
- To end a session, click the 3 dots to the right and select “Log Out“.
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View activity log for suspicious activity.
- When logged in, click on the small “down arrow” in the upper right of the page.
- Click on “Activity Log“.
- Review the log for any suspicious activity.
- Finally, to delete any unwanted activity, click the small pencil icon to the right of the activity item and select “Delete” or “Unlike” (if it was a liked item).
HOW did the Facebook hack happen?
Facebook believes that the attackers exploited a vulnerability found in the code for Facebook’s “View As” feature. The “View As” feature is part of the video uploading program in Facebook. This vulnerability allowed the attackers access to digital keys, otherwise known as tokens, that allow access to a user account. Consequently, anyone who has used this “View As” feature anytime in the past would be victim of the Facebook hack. As Facebook and authorities continue to investigate, they will release further details.
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