Facebook’s latest hacking attack has created a significant mess for it’s users. Right after the incident, people became curious to know what had actually happened, to which, Facebook assured that investigations were underway. The good thing is the initial speculation of 50 million victims has proved wrong, the count was reduced to around 30 million. Nonetheless, these 30 million accounts lost explicit details to hackers. The bad thing is that FB expresses no interest in offering identity theft protection to victims.
Facebook Hack Update – Only 30 Million Accounts Affected
After the massive hacking incident, Facebook vowed to continue investigations and keep the public updated. They certainly seem to be fulfilling this promise as they are revealing details as they find them. In the latest security update, Facebook officials share that the hack affected a count somewhat lower than initially speculated. Facebook confirms that the actual count of hacked accounts is about 30 million.
Facebook explained in their blog post,
“For 15 million people, attackers accessed two sets of information – name and contact details (phone number, email, or both, depending on what people had on their profiles). For 14 million people, the attackers accessed the same two sets of information, as well as other details people had on their profiles.”
The data pilfered from the 14 million hacked accounts include personal profile details, the device types of the users, education and work details, last 10 places check-in, and last 15 searches from those accounts.
Regarding how the hackers succeeded in exploiting the vulnerabilities disclosed earlier and hacking so many accounts, Facebook’s VP of Product Management, Guy Rosen, stated,
“First, the attackers already controlled a set of accounts, which were connected to Facebook friends. They used an automated technique to move from account to account so they could steal the access tokens of those friends, and for friends of those friends, and so on, totaling about 400,000 people.”
Sorry Victims! No ID Protection From Facebook!
As disclosed by the BBC, Facebook expresses no interest in making any offers for ID protection services to the victims. This decision comes in contrast to what most firms usually do after their customers suffer cyber attacks. A Facebook spokeswoman told the BBC that they won’t be taking such steps for the moment. Rather, they have decided to help out the victims via their help center page.
Investigations over the incident still continue at Facebook, and the company pledges to cooperate fully with the FBI. Although, they have unveiled more information in this Facebook hack update, Facebook did not convey anything regarding the geographic impact of this hack.
