Only a few months have passed since the discovery of the biggest privacy scandal on Facebook. Since then, there have been several occurrences of data breaches. Another problem shook 1 Hacker Way, Facebook’s headquarters.
An error in the Facebook API left several photos of private users exposed. The latest news is a big blow to the social media giant who is trying to repair its reputation against previous data breaches.
The company has announced that up to 6.8 million users may have been affected by the API error. Some third-party apps may have had access to more sets of photos than the permission granted. This exposure to unwanted photos occurred for 12 days between September 13 and September 25, 2018. API filtering may have affected up to 1,500 apps created by 876 external developers.
In a blog post, Facebook explains how the API error may have filtered the photos. When users allow a third-party application to access their photos, the platform only grants access to the shared images in the user’s timeline. In this case, due to the error, access was given to other photos, including those shared on the market or Facebook stories.
The main concern is that the error also had an impact on the photos that people have shown as private. According to Facebook, this vulnerability was due to an error related to the connection to Facebook and its photo API.
How to check if you are affected?
Facebook has announced that it will warn users who may be affected by the leak of photos. These users will receive a notification in their mobile app. According to Facebook, the notification will direct users to a link in their help center, which will list the applications affected by the error. It is important for users to connect to these applications to check which photos are shared with the affected applications.
How Facebook plans to fix its image
Given the numerous data breaches that appeared in the image, Facebook is again in full swing. In many cases, the problems were not caused by hackers, but by the cruel treatment of user data by Facebook. According to the social network, the vulnerability is now corrected. Facebook also said that the violation had no effect on private photos shared via Messenger, Instagram or WhatsApp.
