The most used social network in the world, Facebook, revealed that hackers have obtained data that could have given them access 50 million accounts, although he has not confirmed that such an extreme has taken place.
In a conference call, the president and co-founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, eHe explained that last Tuesday The company's engineering team found the attack and the investigation is still in the "initial phase".
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According to Facebook, the hackers abused a "vulnerability" in the code of the platform that affected the "See as" mode, a skill that allows users to see their profile as if they were other people.
This allowed them to grab informationthat could be used by third parties to connect to the accounts of affected internet users, although the company still does not know if this is something the hackers could have done.
"While we think we've already fixed the vulnerability, as a precautionary measure, we temporarily disable the & # 39; See as & # 39; while we run the survey to make sure it does not contain another problem, & # 39 he explained. Zuckerberg.
Also, according to the Californian company, the hackers also tried to gain access to personal information from the user profile such as the name, sex and the municipality of residence, but at the moment Facebook it has no confirmation whether they have managed to collect this data.
"We take the matter very seriously and want to warn everyone what has happened and the immediate actions we have taken to protect the safety of people," said the co-founder of the social network.
One of the measures the company took to respond to the attack went immediately to all affected accounts that had activated the option to connect to Facebook, without the need to enter the username and password.
Mark Zuckerberg remarks that they take the matter extremely seriously. Photo: EFE
That is that those users who used to have direct access to the social network from their mobile application or from the computer and who stored their access codes that were directly stored in the network must enter them manually if they want to reconnect.
Because the company reported that 40 million extra accounts were also disconnected in this way as a "precautionary measure", so if a user has to re-enter their username and password to gain access FacebookThis does not necessarily mean that he is one of the victims of the attack.
The company is based in Menlo Park (California, USA)) assured that he remains in contact with the security forces, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), to help identify hackers.
This attack takes place after April itself Zuckerberg take before the American Senate the responsibility for the massive filtering of data to the company Cambridge Analyticaand make sure that safety is a priority of the company.
The co-founder of the social network then admitted that "it was a big mistake" to allow it Cambridge Analytica access to data from up to 87 million users to promote the election campaign of the current US President, Donald Trump.
Facebook practically monopolizes, together google, income from advertisements on the internet, and is by far the most used social network in the world, with 2000 million monthly users.
Moreover, the company owns the popular instant messaging application WhatsApp, and the one with which you can share images via mobile, Instagram, very used with the youngest.
The immense amount of user data that the company processes on a daily basis has led to different voices from political and civil society organizations around the world to wonder if the company & # 39; excessive & # 39; has reached power levels about people's privacy.
After hearing the news of the theft of data, the actions of Facebook fell 2.51% on the New York Stock Exchange and stood at $ 164.61 per share Nasdaq.
EFE
Drafting – Technology – Colombia.com
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