With Facebook having a wealth of users in the modern day and age, it is no wonder why the platform sees a heavy influx of hacking attempts by cybercriminals across the world. For the last thirteen years, it is estimated that approximately two billion users have been compromised with respect to their personal data. With this in mind, it can be easy to understand why countless vulnerabilities and data breaches had to occur in order for this to take place. Some of these events can be found as follows:
MIT Data Scraping Exercise – December 2005
A research team at MIT created a script to demonstrate how easy it was to download Facebook user data from the network, using the opportunity to post the data of 70,000 user profiles online in order to make a statement about data security on social media.
Facebook Beacon Launch – December 2007
Facebook Beacon was launched in 2007 with the intention of assisting advertisers in understanding their audience better. As it enabled advertisers to track people’s movement on other websites, it would later be classified as a direct violation of the American Video Privacy Protection Act, resulting in a class action lawsuit for $9.5 million.
Private Information Made Public by Facebook – December 2019
Information which users had checked off as private was disclosed publicly by Facebook, which would later culminate in an apology after they were investigated by the Federal Trade Commission.
Contact Information Shared Without Consent – June 2013
A bug was revealed which allowed users to download contact information from others without permission, resulting in 6 million users having their personal information stolen.
Cambridge Analytica Scandal – February 2014
An app named ‘This is Your Digital Life’ was promoted for volunteers to download and try out, upon which the app owners would then proceed to extract data from user profiles (including private messages, friends lists and likes). Even though the app violated Facebook’s terms of service, the app was not removed until December of 2015, at which point 87 million users had had their data harvested.
Search Vulnerability Revealed to the Public – April 2018
Malicious actors used Facebook’s search function to harvest profile data for nearly two billion users without permission, which at the time constituted the majority of Facebook’s user base.
Secret Agreements with Smartphone Manufacturers – June 2018
A deal was uncovered by journalists between Facebook and major smartphone manufacturers, (Microsoft, Samsung, Apple, Lenovo, and Huawei) which involved personal access to the data of the owners of the phone being granted in exchange for making Facebook better on the device brand of choice.
Overridden Blocklists – July 2018
For an eight day period, users were able to see personal information of users who had blocked them.
Onavo Protect VPN – August 2018
Onavo was a VPN service offered by Facebook marketed as a privacy-centric product, but would later be identified as yet another means to collect user data.
Authentication Token Bug – September 2018
Hackers took advantage of a weakness in the authentication algorithm of Facebook via token forgery, gaining access to around 50 million user accounts.
All of this sound scary? Download Wave Browser at wavebrowser.co for more control over your Internet browsing experience!
