Just breaking, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) has found a security issue. The Facebook breach has exposed nearly 50 million accounts and used the ‘View As’ feature on Facebook to corrupt the platform.
Sources suggest that upwards of 90 million accounts may actually be affected.
Facebook’s vice president of product management Guy Rosen described the incident:
“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.”
At the time of writing, Facebook has said the issue is now fixed and the police have been informed.
Facebook Breach: ‘View As’ Feature
The attackers used the ‘View As’ feature to exploit the platform. This feature lets users see their account from the perspective of others.
It’s believed that the hackers took advantage of coding that allowed them to use the ‘View As’ feature to take over the accounts as though they were the account holders.
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The Facebook breach attackers stole “access tokens,” which essentially keep a user logged into their account over a long period of time so they don’t constantly need to sign in.
Facebook Breach
Facebook has said that it has reset these tokens.
“We’ve fixed the vulnerability and informed law enforcement,” Rosen said. “We have reset the access tokens of the almost 50 million accounts we know were affected to protect their security.”
It has also fixed 40 million tokens of accounts that have used the feature in the last year as a “precautionary step.”
About 90 million Facebook users were prompted to log in again on Friday morning after the issue was discovered and fixed.
At the moment, the ‘View As’ feature has been disabled while Facebook conducts security reviews.
Featured Image: Pixabay
