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Hackers Stole 50 Million Facebook Users' Access Tokens Using Zero-Day Flaw

Hackers Stole 50 Million Facebook Users' Access Tokens Using Zero-Day Flaw

Sep 28, 2018
Logged out from your Facebook account automatically? Well you're not alone… Facebook just admitted that an unknown hacker or a group of hackers exploited a zero-day vulnerability in its social media platform that allowed them to steal secret access tokens for more than 50 million accounts. UPDATE:  10 Important Updates You Need To Know About the Latest Facebook Hacking Incident . In a brief blog post published Friday, Facebook revealed that its security team discovered the attack three days ago (on 25 September) and they are still investigating the security incident. The vulnerability, whose technical details has yet not been disclosed and now patched by Facebook, resided in the "View As" feature—an option that allows users to find out what other Facebook users would see if they visit your profile. According to the social media giant, the vulnerability allowed hackers to steal secret access tokens that could then be used to directly access users' private in
Instagram Adds 3 New Security Tools to Make its Platform More Secure

Instagram Adds 3 New Security Tools to Make its Platform More Secure

Aug 29, 2018
Instagram is growing quickly—and with the second most popular social media network in the world (behind just Facebook), the photo-sharing network absolutely dominates when it comes to user interactions. And with great success comes great responsibility—responsibility to keep users' accounts safe, responsibility to fight fake accounts and news, and responsibility of being transparent. You might know that the Facebook-owned photo-sharing network has recently been a victim of a widespread hacking campaign that has affected thousands of Instagram users, leaving them locked out of their accounts. In the wake of the security mishappening, Instagram has announced a trio of security updates intended to discourage trolls, stop misinformation, and make the platform a little safer for its one billion users. In an official blog post , titled "New Tools to Keep Instagram Safe," published by Instagram Co-Founder & CTO Mike Krieger on August 28, the company announced thr
GenAI: A New Headache for SaaS Security Teams

GenAI: A New Headache for SaaS Security Teams

Apr 17, 2024SaaS Security / AI Governance
The introduction of Open AI's ChatGPT was a defining moment for the software industry, touching off a GenAI race with its November 2022 release. SaaS vendors are now rushing to upgrade tools with enhanced productivity capabilities that are driven by generative AI. Among a wide range of uses, GenAI tools make it easier for developers to build software, assist sales teams in mundane email writing, help marketers produce unique content at low cost, and enable teams and creatives to brainstorm new ideas.  Recent significant GenAI product launches include Microsoft 365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot, and Salesforce Einstein GPT. Notably, these GenAI tools from leading SaaS providers are paid enhancements, a clear sign that no SaaS provider will want to miss out on cashing in on the GenAI transformation. Google will soon launch its SGE "Search Generative Experience" platform for premium AI-generated summaries rather than a list of websites.  At this pace, it's just a matter of a short time befo
Facebook Adds FIDO U2F Security Keys Feature For Secure Logins

Facebook Adds FIDO U2F Security Keys Feature For Secure Logins

Jan 27, 2017
Hacking password for a Facebook account is not easy, but also not impossible. We have always been advising you to enable two-factor authentication — or 2FA — to secure your online accounts, a process that requires users to manually enter, typically a six-digit secret code generated by an authenticator app or received via SMS or email. So even if somehow hackers steal your login credentials, they would not be able to access your account without one-time password sent to you. But, Are SMS-based one-time passwords Secure? US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is also no longer recommending SMS-based two-factor authentication systems , and it's not a reliable solution mainly because of two reasons: Users outside the network coverage can face issues Growing number of sophisticated attacks against OTP schemes So, to beef up the security of your account, Facebook now support Fido-compliant Universal 2nd Factor Authentication (U2F), allows users to log into
cyber security

Today's Top 4 Identity Threat Exposures: Where To Find Them and How To Stop Them

websiteSilverfortIdentity Protection / Attack Surface
Explore the first ever threat report 100% focused on the prevalence of identity security gaps you may not be aware of.
Beware of New Celebrity Sex Tape (Scam) Leaked on Facebook!

Beware of New Celebrity Sex Tape (Scam) Leaked on Facebook!

Dec 12, 2016
If you came across a celebrity sex video on Facebook featuring Jessica Alba or any other celebrity, just avoid clicking it. Another Facebook scam is circulating across the social networking website that attempts to trick Facebook users into clicking on a link for a celebrity sex tape that instead downloads malware onto their computers. Once installed, the malware would force web browsers to display aggressive advertising web pages which include sites with nudity and fake lotteries. The spam campaign was uncovered by researchers at Cyren, who noted that a malicious Google Chrome extension is spreading nude celebrity PDFs through private messages and posts on various Facebook groups. If opened, the PDF file takes victims to a web page with an image containing a play button, tricking users that the PDF may contain a video. Once clicked, the link redirects users of Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari to a web page with overly-aggressive popups and advertisements related to
STOP Sharing that Facebook Privacy and Permission Notice, It's a HOAX

STOP Sharing that Facebook Privacy and Permission Notice, It's a HOAX

Jun 29, 2016
Recently, you may have seen some of your Facebook friends started posting a Facebook " Privacy Notice " clarifying that they no longer give Facebook permission to use their photos, personal information, and so on. The Privacy message looks something like this: "From Monday, 27th June, 2016, 1528 IST, I don't give Facebook permission to use my pictures, my information or my publications, both of the past and the future, mine or those where I show up. By this statement, I give my notice to Facebook it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, give, sell my information, photos or take any other action against me on the basis of this profile and/or its contents. The content of this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of privacy can be punished by law (UCC 1-308-1 1 308-103 and the Rome statute). Note: Facebook is now a public entity. All members must post a note like this. If you prefer, you can copy and paste this version.
How to Hack Facebook Account Just by Knowing Phone Number

How to Hack Facebook Account Just by Knowing Phone Number

Jun 15, 2016
Hacking Facebook account is one of the major queries on the Internet today. It's hard to find — how to hack Facebook account or facebook messenger, but researchers found a way that can allow someone to hack Facebook account passwords with only the target's phone number and some resources. Yes, your Facebook profile can be hacked, no matter how strong your password is or how much extra security measures you have taken. No joke! Hackers with resources to exploit SS7 network can hack your Facebook login and all they need is your phone number. The weaknesses in the part of global telecom network SS7 that not only let hackers and spy agencies listen to personal phone calls and intercept SMSes on a potentially massive scale but also let them hijack social media accounts to which you have provided your phone number. SS7 or Signalling System Number 7 is a cell phone signaling protocol that is being used by more than 800 telecommunication operators worldwide to exchange i
Hacker Installed a Secret Backdoor On Facebook Server to Steal Passwords

Hacker Installed a Secret Backdoor On Facebook Server to Steal Passwords

Apr 22, 2016
How to Hack Facebook? That's the most commonly asked question during this decade. It's a hacker dream to hack Facebook website for earning bug bounty or for any malicious purpose. Facebook security team recently found that someone, probably a blackhat hacker with malicious intent, has breached into its server and installed a backdoor that was configured to steal Facebook employees' login credentials. Since the backdoor discovered in the Facebook's corporate server, not on its main server, Facebook user accounts are not affected by this incident. Though the company would have never known about the backdoor if a whitehat hacker had never spotted the backdoor script while hunting for vulnerabilities. Also Read: Ever Wondered How Facebook Decides, How much Bounty Should be Paid? Security researcher Orange Tsai of Taiwanese security vendor DEVCORE accidentally came across a backdoor script on one of Facebook's corporate servers while finding bugs to earn cash reward fr
Facebook Will Now Notify You If NSA is Spying on You

Facebook Will Now Notify You If NSA is Spying on You

Oct 19, 2015
Facebook just launched a new notification feature that will alert you if the social network strongly suspects that your account is being hijacked or targeted by hackers working in the interest of a nation-state. The message, which you can see below, recommends users to turn ON " Login Approvals ," so that their Facebook accounts can only be accessed using stronger two-factor authentication. Facebook insists that some necessary steps are already taken to secure users' Facebook accounts that may be targeted by hackers, but the company has also stepped up to directly warn its users when a government-sponsored attack is under away. In a blog post published Saturday, Facebook Chief Security Officer (CSO) Alex Stamos announced that this step to secure accounts is necessary "because these types of attacks tend to be more advanced and dangerous than others." Stamos added that "it's important to understand that this warning is not related t
Warning! How Hackers Could Hijack Your Facebook Fan Page With This Trick

Warning! How Hackers Could Hijack Your Facebook Fan Page With This Trick

Aug 28, 2015
Facebook bounty hunter Laxman Muthiyah from India has recently discovered his third bug of this year in the widely popular social network website that just made a new record by touching 1 Billion users in a single day. At the beginning of the year, Laxman discovered a serious flaw in Facebook graphs that allowed him to view or probably delete others photo album on Facebook, even without having authentication. Just after a month, Laxman uncovered another critical vulnerability in the social network platform that resided in the Facebook Photo Sync feature , that automatically uploads photos from your mobile device to a private Facebook album, which isn't visible to any of your Facebook friends or other Facebook users. However, the flaw discovered by Laxman could allowed any third-party app to access and steal your personal photographs from the hidden Facebook Photo Sync album. Hacking Any Facebook Page Now, the latest bug in Laxman's list could allow atta
Mark's Milestone: 1 Billion People Uses Facebook in A Single Day

Mark's Milestone: 1 Billion People Uses Facebook in A Single Day

Aug 28, 2015
Yesterday, Facebook Co-founder and Chairman Mark Zuckerberg broadcast in his Facebook post, that Monday Facebook made a record by counting ONE BILLION people accessing Facebook in a single day. Zuckerberg shared his happiness and thanked the world. He was overwhelmed with the milestone Facebook has touched and even shared a video expressing his emotions. "[Facebook] just passed an important milestone," Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post on Thursday. "For the first time ever, one billion people used Facebook in a single day." That means roughly 1 in 7 people on Earth connected with their friends and family using Facebook in a single day. Feeling Connected Indeed! So far, Facebook is the world's largest online social networking website with 1.5 Billion monthly active users . Comparatively, Twitter has 316 Million monthly active users . Zuckerberg felt proud of the Facebook community. As they are the ones, who helped him to reach such
Facebook Employees can Access your Account without Password

Facebook Employees can Access your Account without Password

Feb 28, 2015
Do you know that your Facebook account can be accessed by Facebook engineers and that too without entering your account credentials? Recent details provided by the social network giant show who can access your Facebook account and when. No doubt, Facebook and other big tech companies including Google, Apple and Yahoo! are trying to keep their data out of reach from law enforcement and spies agencies by adopting encrypted communication and end-to-end encryption solutions in near future, but right now they have access to your personal data, and at least few of their employees can access it with one click. Earlier this week, director at the record label Anjunabeats, Paavo Siljamäki , brought attention to this issue by posting a very interesting story on his Facebook wall. During his visit to Facebook office in LA, a Facebook engineer logged into his Facebook account after his permission, but the strange part — they did it without asking him for the password. ACCESS WITHOUT
​Facebook launches ThreatExchange for Sharing Cyber Security Threats

​Facebook launches ThreatExchange for Sharing Cyber Security Threats

Feb 12, 2015
Social Networking giant Facebook has just launched a new platform called ThreatExchange , which is designed to mount a coordinated defense against cybercrime. Many security professionals rely largely on manual methods for collecting, analyzing, and consuming information about latest cyber security threats such as malware and botnets . Whereas, Mark Zuckerberg's ThreatExchange is a unique social media platform where multiple organizations can sign up and share information about new threats to cyber security, new types of hacks, phishing attacks and malicious activities they may have experienced. COLLABORATE AND TAKE ACTION Facebook is currently using a threat analysis framework called " ThreatData " to discover and tackle scams and cybercrimes, but with the growth in the magnitude of cyber attacks, Facebook believes that better communication between companies could help stamp them out. " We quickly learned that sharing with one another was key to bea
Facebook Vulnerability Allows Hacker to Delete Any Photo Album

Facebook Vulnerability Allows Hacker to Delete Any Photo Album

Feb 12, 2015
A Serious vulnerability in Facebook has recently been reported that could allow anyone to delete your complete Facebook photo album without having authentication. Security Researcher Laxman Muthiyah told The Hacker News that the vulnerability actually resides in Facebook Graph API mechanism, which allows "a hacker to delete any photo album on Facebook . Any photo album owned by an user or a page or a group could be deleted." DELETING FACEBOOK PHOTO ALBUMS According to Facebook developers documentation, its not possible to delete albums using the Graph API, but Indian security researcher has found a way to delete not just his own, but also others Facebook photo albums within few seconds. " I decided to try it with Facebook for mobile access token because we can see delete option for all photo albums in Facebook mobile application isn't it? Yeah and also it uses the same Graph API ," he said. In general, Facebook Graph API requires an access tok
Win Apple's iPhone 6 For Free – A New Facebook Scam

Win Apple's iPhone 6 For Free – A New Facebook Scam

Sep 17, 2014
Apple's iPhone 6 FREE ? Of course not ! It's only a hoax, but scammers have announced the just release iPhone 6 free. Another Facebook scam is circulating across the popular social networking website just days after Apple unveiled its upcoming iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, as scammers take advantage of all the hype and use them to lure Facebook users. THREE SIMPLE STEPS AND iPHONE 6 IS YOURS — REALLY? As usual, This new scam promises a chance to Win a free iPhone 6 to those users who complete a series of steps, as reported by Hoax-Slayer. You just need to go through "three easy steps" to get a chance to win the device: Like the Facebook page created to propagate the scam Share the page with your Facebook friends Download a "Participation Application" But before you proceed to the last step, a pop-up window leads you to participate in a survey before you can download the application. The survey will ask you to share your name, address, p
Facebook Rolling Out Privacy Checkup for Users

Facebook Rolling Out Privacy Checkup for Users

Sep 06, 2014
Facebook has launched a new tool to help you better manage sharing your information and postings on the social network among your friends and the public at-large. The social networking giant on Thursday rolled out its "Privacy Checkup" tool that will help its more than 1.2 billion users to audit their privacy settings on Facebook to make sure they know with whom they are sharing their personal and very private details of their lives. " We know you come to Facebook to connect with friends, not with us. But we also know how important it is to be in control of what you share and who you share with, " wrote Facebook product manager Paddy Underwood. " You'll see the option to take Privacy Checkup when you visit Facebook in the coming days. Click 'Let's Do It!' to do the Checkup; it should only take a minute or two. " The expanded feature was originally announced by the network giant back in May. Facebook users would see a privacy checkup pop-up on their computers to
Facebook SDK Vulnerability Puts Millions of Smartphone Users' Accounts at Risk

Facebook SDK Vulnerability Puts Millions of Smartphone Users' Accounts at Risk

Jul 03, 2014
Security researchers from MetaIntell, the leader in intelligent led Mobile Risk Management (MRM), have discovered a major security vulnerability in the latest version of Facebook SDK that put millions of Facebook user's Authentication Tokens at risk. Facebook SDK for Android and iOS is the easiest way to integrate mobile apps with Facebook platform, which provides support for Login with Facebook authentication, reading and writing to Facebook APIs and many more. Facebook OAuth authentication or ' Login as Facebook ' mechanism is a personalized and secure way for users to sign into 3rd party apps without sharing their passwords. After the user approves the permissions as requested by the application, the Facebook SDK implements the OAuth 2.0 User-Agent flow to retrieve the secret user's access token required by the apps to call Facebook APIs to read, modify or write user's Facebook data on their behalf. ACCESSING UNENCRYPTED ACCESS TOKEN It is important that
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