(CMR) Facebook has announced that a security issue has impacted some 50 million of it's social media accounts.
The attackers, who were not identified, exploited a feature that lets users see their Facebook page the way someone else would. They could then potentially use it to take over the accounts. Facebook says it has already fixed the issue and informed law enforcement. More than 90 million users were forced to log out of their accounts on Friday for security reasons.
They stated that:
On the afternoon of Tuesday, September 25, our engineering team discovered a security issue affecting almost 50 million accounts. We’re taking this incredibly seriously and wanted to let everyone know what’s happened and the immediate action we’ve taken to protect people’s security.
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.
Here is the action we have already taken. First, we’ve fixed the vulnerability and informed law enforcement.
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