Hackers Claim They Possess Details of 120 Million Facebook Accounts, Publish Private Messages From 81,000 of Them (bbc.com) 37
Andrei Zakharov, reporting for BBC: Hackers appear to have compromised and published private messages from at least 81,000 Facebook users' accounts. The perpetrators told the BBC Russian Service that they had details from a total of 120 million accounts, which they were attempting to sell, although there are reasons to be sceptical about that figure.
Facebook said its security had not been compromised. And the data had probably been obtained through malicious browser extensions.
Facebook added it had taken steps to prevent further accounts being affected. The BBC understands many of the users whose details have been compromised are based in Ukraine and Russia. However, some are from the UK, US, Brazil and elsewhere. The hackers offered to sell access for 10 cents (8p) per account. However, their advert has since been taken offline. "We have contacted browser-makers to ensure that known malicious extensions are no longer available to download in their stores," said Facebook executive Guy Rosen. "We have also contacted law enforcement and have worked with local authorities to remove the website that displayed information from Facebook accounts."
Facebook added it had taken steps to prevent further accounts being affected. The BBC understands many of the users whose details have been compromised are based in Ukraine and Russia. However, some are from the UK, US, Brazil and elsewhere. The hackers offered to sell access for 10 cents (8p) per account. However, their advert has since been taken offline. "We have contacted browser-makers to ensure that known malicious extensions are no longer available to download in their stores," said Facebook executive Guy Rosen. "We have also contacted law enforcement and have worked with local authorities to remove the website that displayed information from Facebook accounts."
I believe Facebook (Score:5, Funny)
They do what they can so no hacker can sell your most intimate details.
That's already their own business model, dammit! Who wouldn't fight competition when possible?
Re: (Score:1)
Really?
Care to share? I didn't even know I have an account.
Yet another reason.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or most other social media.
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There will come a day when having never used social media will be an accolade - and it can't come too soon.
Re:Yet another reason.... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's clearly a reason to not trust them with sensitive data. Tell us the risks of sharing your kids' Halloween pics with Aunt Helen?
Shades of meaning are essential for accurate risk analysis.
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Yes. They know that you have phoned the abortion clinic, visited the abortion clinic's website, went to the abortion clinic with your car and left a couple hours later, but they don't know if you aborted a pregnancy.
Re:Yet another reason.... (Score:4, Funny)
Well, feeding advertisers pictures of your kids, their favorite characters, and where they live doesn't sound great to me. But then again, I think it's the parent's responsibility to protect their children from assholes in the world. But, whatever, let that be more one more datapoint for the targeted ads that manipulate their little minds.
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The more information a group has about a person, the better profile they can build on them. The better the portfolio of profiles, the more easily they can manipulate the individuals. This is how advertising works. But these methods are used for more than just trying to sell products, they are also used by political campaigns that try to figure out how to target individuals with ads, article recommendations, and other content that will be more likely to convince the individual to vote for their cause. Th
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Why would you want to let a myriad of faceless corporations, hackers or anyone other than family and close friends even KNOW you have kids or an Aunt Helen?
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Tell us the risks of sharing your kids' Halloween pics with Aunt Helen?
Facial recognition of your kids (possibly), geotagging, aggregating it with other sources to "refine" the specificity of the data, etc etc etc.
If you don't think your "harmless" publicly-posted data can be misused or weaponized, you haven't been paying attention.
Planting the seeds of future spying revelations (Score:2)
I concur; it's disappointing that people on a tech site such as /. conflate the intention of the user posting the material with how the posted material can be used later (even within the scope of uses we can identify today which is no doubt just the start). From a technical (as opposed to ethical) perspective, the poster's intention is irrelevant. The parent post is underrated and the grandparent post is overrated.
People in the future might not enjoy knowing that the choices they made today were the basis o
Facebook Statement (Score:5, Insightful)
We are shocked and outraged at this illegal and illicit activity. We at Facebook take protecting the data we collect very seriously. How else are we supposed to get top dollar for selling it to the highest bidder?
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1. Security is viewed as an expense instead of as an investment.
* It takes 20 years to build a good reputation,
* It takes 20 seconds to lose it.
2. Murphy's Computer Law:
There is never time to do it right, but always time to do it over.
Some help please? (Score:2)
Who's sending (Score:1)
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Dang (Score:2)
I don't have a Facedork account, how can I get in on this free dissemination of my data??