Earlier today, Facebook revealed the details of its latest security breach, and it seems like a big one, with up to 5o million accounts affected after hackers exploited a vulnerability in the social network’s code.
Guy Rosen, the company’s VP of Product Management, explained the situation in a blog post, saying that a total of 90 million users will have to log back in to the app as a result of the flaw. He went on to say:
Our investigation is still in its early stages. But it’s clear that attackers exploited a vulnerability in Facebook’s code that impacted ‘View As’, a feature that lets people see what their own profile looks like to someone else. This allowed them to steal Facebook access tokens which they could then use to take over people’s accounts. Access tokens are the equivalent of digital keys that keep people logged in to Facebook so they don’t need to re-enter their password every time they use the app.
Rosen said that Facebook has fixed the vulnerability and turned off ‘View As’ while it conducts a security review, and informed law enforcement of the situation.
It has also reset the access tokens of the 50 million accounts known to be affected, as well as taking the precautionary step of resetting access tokens for another 40 million.
Those who are forced to log back in will get a notification at the top of their News Feed explaining what happened. Further details are scarce at this point, with Rosen saying:
“Since we’ve only just started our investigation, we have yet to determine whether these accounts were misused or any information accessed. We also don’t know who’s behind these attacks or where they’re based. We’re working hard to better understand these details – and we will update this post when we have more information, or if the facts change. In addition, if we find more affected accounts, we will immediately reset their access tokens.”
He apologised on behalf of the company an said that the security of it users remains “very important.” You can read the blog post with further info here.
