Facebook Bug Could Give Spammers Names, Photos

angry tapir writes with this excerpt from an IDG report: "Facebook is scrambling to fix a bug in its website that could be misused by spammers to harvest user names and photographs. It turns out that if someone enters the e-mail address of a Facebook user along with the wrong password, Facebook returns a special 'Please re-enter your password' page, which includes the Facebook photo and full name of the person associated with the address. A spammer with an e-mail list could write a script that enters the e-mail addresses into Facebook and then logs the real names. This could help make a phishing attack more realistic."

Comments

Not a Bug

[FrozenTousen]

It's a feature. Say you get amnesia and all you remember is your email address. Now, thanks to Facebook, you have a means of finding out your name, and what you look like!

Re:Not a Bug

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a very serious bug. Spammers aren't _supposed_ to be able to scrape that information without paying facebook for it.

Re:Not a Bug

[by (1706743)]

It's a feature. Say you get amnesia and all you remember is your email address. Now, thanks to Facebook, you have a means of finding out your name, and what you look like!

Imagine how much simpler the plot for The Bourne Identity would have been.

From TFA

[wideBlueSkies]

>>Scraping Facebook for this type of information is prohibited, she added.

Oh, yes. That'll stop em'. Stern warnings always do.

Re:This flaw is no longer available

[Farmer Tim]

Slashdot: recent history for nerds, stuff that once mattered.

Re:Return vs. Fresh Login

[AnAdventurer]

Best line EVER: A spammer isn't going to have your cookies