50 Million Facebook users hacked; Is the internet’s passport no longer safe?

By Christopher Giacobbe
December 15, 2018

Santiago by Katy Levinson, on Flickr
Santiago”  by Katy Levinson

Facebook, often referred to the passport of the internet, the largest social platform on the internet has had it’s biggest and most embarrassing hack to date.

50 million accounts were hacked, all done by exploiting a bug in the platform’s code.

Although 90 million people total were logged out of their Facebook accounts it does not necessarily mean you were hacked.

Mark Zuckerberg, creator of the app itself had his own account hacked and was actually threatened to be deleted as some sort of message.

“My mom was hacked and she was really distraught about it because she thought Facebook would be a safe place to share her information,” said Behn Worley an undeclared major. “She hasn’t been on Facebook since.”

The origin of the hackers or hacker is still unknown nor is the motive for this hack known. With this hack the hackers could access years of countless private information that users have posted. Including private messages. It appears aside from Zuckerberg and the COO of Facebook Sandberg there really is no rhyme or reason for who was targeted. It would appear that the other hacked accounts were completely random.

Facebook by stockcatalog, on Flickr
Facebook” by stockcatalog
 

Anytime a user has signed into a website or another app using Facebook this also gives these hackers access to those websites or apps. This is not just a theory. It is already been happening across other apps like Spotify, Pintrest, Yelp and even Instagram.

“I’ve had my Instagram since I was in 7th grade so when I saw it was hacked I was real upset,” Katrina Dillon, finance major, said.  Instagram is another massive social media platform owned by Facebook and many people have reported losing their accounts.

Instagram also being hacked with people’s Facebook was also very alarming due to the fact that many businesses rely on Instagram for marketing, similarly to how businesses use Facebook for. It is very strongly suspected that these hackers were able to get into Instagram accounts due to the “Sign in with Facebook” feature. This feature is included in many apps which is quite alarming when the possibilities for more hacks are thought about.

“I have cousins in Ireland and I use Facebook to contact them because I don’t have to pay for it,” Alexis Goldstein, criminology and sociology major at Cabrini said. “My Instagram was hacked as well and I had to change the password.”

The hack has affected many people and in many different ways. It is still uncertain at this time what the purpose of this hack was, but what ever it may be it will definitely be time to change passwords.

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Christopher Giacobbe

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