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Facebook announced that hackers are responsible for a data breach that impacts 50 million users

This is huge.

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Image: Hollywood Reporter

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Facebook has announced that hackers had stolen security tokens associated with 50 million user profiles. As a precaution, the social network is forcing those and 40 million other Facebook users to log back into their accounts.

In breaking news, Facebook said hacker exploited the company’s systems through a flaw in the “View As” feature, which allows a user to view their profile as a friend, the public, or another third party.

By using a vulnerability in the “View As” feature, the hackers were able to access the access tokens of users. These access tokens are basically digital keys that open the door for apps and Facebook to connect and keep users from having to log into Facebook every time they access the site.

While Facebook is still conducting its investigation, the company said it learned that the hackers used the feature to steal the access tokens that allow a user to reopen Facebook without having to log back in.

Here’s the full statement on the issue from Facebook:

On the afternoon of Tuesday, September 25, our engineering team discovered a security issue affecting almost 50 million accounts. We’re taking this incredibly seriously and wanted to let everyone know what’s happened and the immediate action we’ve taken to protect people’s security.

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.

Here is the action we have already taken. First, we’ve fixed the vulnerability and informed law enforcement.

Second, we have reset the access tokens of the almost 50 million accounts we know were affected to protect their security. We’re also taking the precautionary step of resetting access tokens for another 40 million accounts that have been subject to a “View As” look-up in the last year. As a result, around 90 million people will now have to log back in to Facebook, or any of their apps that use Facebook Login. After they have logged back in, people will get a notification at the top of their News Feed explaining what happened.

Third, we’re temporarily turning off the “View As” feature while we conduct a thorough security review.

This attack exploited the complex interaction of multiple issues in our code. It stemmed from a change we made to our video uploading feature in July 2017, which impacted “View As.” The attackers not only needed to find this vulnerability and use it to get an access token, they then had to pivot from that account to others to steal more tokens.

Since we’ve only just started our investigation, we have yet to determine whether these accounts were misused or any information accessed. We also don’t know who’s behind these attacks or where they’re based. We’re working hard to better understand these details — and we will update this post when we have more information, or if the facts change. In addition, if we find more affected accounts, we will immediately reset their access tokens.

People’s privacy and security is incredibly important, and we’re sorry this happened. It’s why we’ve taken immediate action to secure these accounts and let users know what happened. There’s no need for anyone to change their passwords. But people who are having trouble logging back into Facebook — for example because they’ve forgotten their password — should visit our Help Center. And if anyone wants to take the precautionary action of logging out of Facebook, they should visit the “Security and Login” section in settings. It lists the places people are logged into Facebook with a one-click option to log out of them all.

The company says it has fixed the vulnerability and has informed law enforcement. Besides resetting tokens for 90 million users, the company has also turned off the “View As” feature while it conducts a full security review.

Facebook currently has 2 billion users worldwide.

We’ll continue to follow this story as it develops.

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Bryan considers himself a well-rounded techie, having written articles for MakeUseOf, KnowTechie, AppAdvice, iDownload Blog. When he's not writing, he's being a single dad and rooting for his alma mater, Penn State, or cheering on the Patriots.

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