Facebook: hackers took control of 50 million accounts

Attackers did not access private exchanges or post messages instead of real users, according to preliminary results of the survey conducted by the social network.

The difficulties accumulate for Facebook. In a blog post posted on Friday night, the 2.2 billion-strong social network announced that a security breach had allowed hackers to take control of 50 million accounts.

The vulnerability, discovered Tuesday by his team of engineers, was " repaired " Thursday night. The Menlo Park firm opened an investigation and alerted the authorities, including the FBI. The company also took " precautionary measures " by automatically disconnecting from their accounts 90 million users Thursday night. " We take this case very seriously, " Mark Zuckerberg said in a conference call with reporters on Friday.

The level of access and control exercised by pirates remains unclear for the moment. The Facebook CEO said they did not access private exchanges or post messages for real users, according to the preliminary results of the survey, but quickly added that the findings " could change ". " So far, we know they have had access to public information such as name, the city of birth and gender, " Mark Zuckerberg said.

Facebook announced on Friday that it discovered a security breach on September 25 that affected nearly 50 million accounts. The firm added not to know, for the moment, if personal data were consulted and/or diverted.

"The fault was repaired yesterday (Thursday) night," said Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook announced on Friday that its engineering team discovered a security breach on September 25 that affected nearly 50 million accounts, adding that it had not yet determined whether accounts had been diverted or whether there had been accessing to information.

An advertisement whose social network to more than 2 billion users would have gone well. Facebook announced on Friday, September 28, that its engineering team discovered, September 25, a security breach that affected nearly 50 million accounts.

New disappointment took "very seriously" by Facebook

The first global social network adds in a statement having corrected the security breach and warned the authorities. This is a new setback - the gravity of which remains to be determined - for the world's leading social network and its more than 2 billion users worldwide.

Hackers had access to data via the "profile preview as" tool, which allows you to see what other users see from their own profile, explains Facebook: "As we have just launched our investigation, we still need to determine if these accounts were misused or if there was access to information, "he says.

"We take this extremely seriously," the group wrote in a statement earlier, adding "take immediate action."

Mark Zuckerberg explained that the flaw was discovered Tuesday after the technical teams of the group had noticed a "peak of activity" in the connections: "An attacker exploited a technical vulnerability to steal access tools to lodge in the Facebook account of about 50 million accounts, "he said.

These tools ("tokens" in English) allow users to automatically reconnect to their account. To the knowledge of Facebook, hackers were able to access data in the profiles, but without knowing what they had done or expected to do. 

Facebook said "work" with the US federal police, the FBI. The hackers "were able to use the account as if they were the holders," noted Guy Rosen during the conference call, senior manager of the group, in charge of "Product Management". "We are sorry," he added, not knowing who was behind the attack.

However, according to the first findings of the group, they did not, it seems, not used this flaw to put publications on pirated accounts, nor access private messages but the group continues to investigate. According to the world's leading social network, passwords have not been compromised, nor credit card information.

For now, Facebook has suspended the "View as" feature until further notice and has disconnected the 50 million hacked accounts, leading their owners to have to "log in" again.
Facebook has extended this measure, "as a precaution," to 40 million additional accounts, whose functionality "See as" has been used recently.

This hacking "shows once again that we are in an arms race" with "constant attacks" intended to "steal information", said Mark Zuckerberg, who assured that the group should always be "more proactive" facing threats.

As a result of these announcements, the Facebook title loses more than 3% mid-session on Wall Street, while the S & P 500 is unchanged.
In recent months, user confidence has already been shaken by several scandals and Facebook is experiencing the worst crisis in its (young) history.

The group is criticized for having served as a platform for political manipulation, especially during the 2016 US presidential campaign, or for letting the data of tens of millions of users go unnoticed to the British firm Cambridge Analytica.
Despite repeated apologies from his leader, including in front of the US Congress, the image of Facebook, born in 2004, came out largely tarnished.

Worse, while the scandals had long spared its finances, the giant had a sudden stock market stunt in July after announcing a quarterly turnover and a number of users below market expectations.