Facebook Caught Exposing Millions of Credentials

fysdt writes "Facebook has leaked photographs, profiles and other personal information for millions of its users because of a years-old bug that overrides individual privacy settings, researchers from Symantec said. The flaw, which the researchers estimate has affected hundreds of thousands of applications, exposed user access tokens to advertisers and others. The tokens serve as a spare set of keys that Facebook apps use to perform certain actions on behalf of the user, such as posting messages to a Facebook wall or sending RSVP replies to invitations. For years, many apps that rely on an older form of user authentication turned over these keys to third parties, giving them the ability to access information users specifically designated as off limits."

Comments

Dog Bites Man, News at Eleven.

[spun]

Somebody needs to take a refresher course in "What is this 'news" thing, anyway?" Something that happens with utter predictability and regularity, like a dog biting a man, is never really news. But if a man were to bite a dog, or Facebook was caught protecting user information, then that would be news.

Re:They're still operating ...

[Samalie]

I find this wrong (obviously), but at least in my personal case, I assume that everything I ever put on FB is there for the entire world to see, regardless of my own privacy settings.

I care about my privacy...I just don't see Facebook as even remotely "private"