#SocialSpeak: Facebook’s in the Hot Spot Again

There has been so much controversy around different Facebook breaches recently, and even though Facebook keeps trying to win back user trust, it seems like things keep getting out of hand with their lack of proper security.

Last week, on September 25, 2018, Facebook’s engineering team discovered a security threat where 50 million user accounts were hacked into with access tokens. “An access token is the thing your browser uses to keep you logged in to your Facebook account after signing in once.” That’s right. Not 10, or 20, but 50 million accounts!

It was stated 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.”

This allowed hackers to control people’s profiles as if it was their own. It let them scroll through the victims’ posts, private messages, access all their information, and post on their behalf. However, it is still unclear whether these hacked accounts were misused or not. It is still also unknown why these hacks took place and who is behind them.

As Facebook is trying to fix this breach many people may find themselves logged out of their account and will be required to enter their username and password for verification. Facebook has not asked anyone to change their passwords yet, as the hackers have not accessed profiles through passwords, however, it would be recommended to go ahead and change your passwords to stay on the safe side.

Remember to also check if anyone is logged into your account, you can take an extra safety step and visit the ‘Security and Login’ section under your settings. This page lists all the devices and locations your account is logged into and it allows you to log out of all of them with one-click.

While Facebook tries to completely fix this issue and ensure it doesn’t happen again, we want to hear your thoughts. Are you still a Facebook user or are you now considering deactivating your account? Also, do things like these make you lose trust in social media platforms or is it normal that all platforms will have bugs every now and then?

That’s a wrap for #SOCIALSPEAK! Stay tuned for our weekly updates on the latest happenings in the social media world.