Facebook’s latest hack is worse than Cambridge Analytica
The largest hack in Facebook’s 14-year history was revealed on September 25, 2018. The security gap was left open since July 2017, however, the three part hack wasn’t caught by Facebook until September 16, 2018.
What happened
Facebook’s engineers built and deployed a quiz app that harvested data from users and left their accounts vulnerable to hackers, in addition to giving users the ability to collect data from friends of the person who took the quiz. The loophole was so huge, users who did the quiz unknowingly exposed their friends.
Facebook’s three bugs allowed hackers access to 50 million user accounts, and once they were in, they also gained access to third party apps like Instagram and Spotify through people’s individual Facebook account. This breach gave hackers the ability to control user’s Facebook accounts. The team at Facebook is responsible because they left the vulnerability wide open in July 2017, giving hackers full access for over one year.
This hack is more serious than Cambridge Analytica
The Cambridge Analytica hack was brutal for 87 million users, but not compared to the most recent Facebook data breach. While fewer user accounts were hacked this time, the repercussions are much more severe than Cambridge Analytica, which affected elections and resulted in deaths in a handful of countries.
A watershed moment is upon us
The Cambridge Analytica breach was a result of Facebook’s carelessness, this breach shows that Facebook cannot secure user data anymore. Even Mark Zuckerberg’s own account got swept up in the hack.
The FBI has been investigating the breach, but that takes a significant amount of time. The fallout from the Cambridge Analytica hack hasn’t been mitigated, while this new hack has been exposed.
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