Unic Press UK: Facebook says about 50 million accounts were breached by hackers’, who had exploited a lapse in one of its codes.
In a statement Friday, Facebook said:
“On the afternoon of Tuesday, September 25, our engineering team discovered a security issue affecting almost 50 million accounts. 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.”
Facebook added that immediate measures have been taken to address the issue, including: informing the law enforcement agencies, resetting the access tokens of the breached accounts, and temporarily turning off the “View As” feature.
