Facebook has just revealed that a huge data breach affecting 50 million accounts worldwide has occurred.
Attackers managed to exploit a feature that allowed the takeover of user accounts.
The social networking giant has said it has fixed the vulnerability and informed law enforcement.
If you've been logged out of your account and asked to sign back in, it’s because we've discovered a security issue and are taking immediate action to protect people on Facebook. Learn more https://t.co/XLcHGYFBu2
— Facebook (@facebook) September 28, 2018
“Our investigation is still in its early stages. But it’s clear that attackers exploited a vulnerability in Facebook’s code that impacted the ‘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,” said Facebook.
