HomeThe WorldFacebook announces up to 50 million accounts may have been hacked
Facebook announces up to 50 million accounts may have been hacked
September 28, 2018 Joel Cholo Brooks The World 0
Tech giant says it still has no idea who was behind the "security issue."
Facebook announced that 50 million accounts may have been hacked, with potentially tens of millions more. CREDIT: NURPHOTO / GETTY
Facebook announced on Friday afternoon that a "security issue" had led hackers to access nearly 50 million accounts.
In a statement, Facebook VP of Product Management Guy Rosen announced that hackers had exploited"vulnerability" in Facebook's "View As" feature, which allows users to view their profiles from the vantage of another user. Rosen said Facebook discovered the breach on Tuesday, and that they still don't know who was responsible for the hack.
"Our investigation is still in its early stages," Rosen wrote. "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."
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