This isn’t something a quick password change can fix.
In a press release on Friday, Facebook announced that a security breach has resulted in data being leaked for 50 million users.
The social media giant advised account holders that the people who conducted the breach exploited a “vulnerability” in the ‘View As’ feature that allows users to see what their profile looks like to others.
“This allowed them to steal Facebook access tokens which they could then use to take over people’s accounts,” said the company.
Steps taken
After detecting the breach, Facebook has fixed the vulnerability, informed law enforcement, and temporarily turned off the ‘View As’ feature.
The company has also reset the access tokens of the 50 million accounts that were known to have been breached, as well as 40 million accounts that have been subject to a “View As” look-up in the last year, as a precaution.
These 90 million users will be automatically logged out of their accounts and have to log back into Facebook or any other apps that use Facebook Login.
The company also advised users that changing their password is not necessary in this situation, but if anyone has trouble logging back into their accounts, they should visit their Help Centre.
“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,” reads the press release.
Facebook promises to keep users informed of any updates related to this incident.
