Facebook Discloses Security Breach That Affected 50 Million Accounts

Facebook revealed earlier this afternoon that they uncovered a security breach that has affected roughly 50 million user accounts.

Per Facebook:

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.

They have fixed the issue and have reset the 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,” Facebook said.

[image via screengrab]

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