Facebook is relaunching its ‘view as’ feature that was disabled last year after hackers used it for their illicit purposes. According to Facebook, the feature gave access to hackers to steal user’s access tokens – the key that allowed them to stay logged into Facebook without having to re-enter their login credentials each time they want to use the app.
Through the token, the hackers were able to access the complete social media profile of the affected users – allowing them to change, delete, download, and simply read anything from the specific Facebook handle.
Facebook discovered the vulnerability in September.
Initially, the company predicted that around 50 million accounts have been compromised through the breach but decided to reset an additional 40 million as a precaution step. In October, the company reduced the number to 30 million accounts, which is still a significantly large number of affected accounts.
On Tuesday, Facebook updated its blog post regarding the security breach and stated that they are re-enabling the version of the ‘view as’ feature that was not affected by the security issue.
The ‘view as’ feature was regarded to improve the users privacy and security by allowing them to see how their profile would appear in front of other users – even if they aren’t friends on Facebook.
Besides the ‘view as’ feature, the company is also adding an ‘edit public details’ button that would make it convenient for users to edit the information that is available to the public.
Read next: Facebook Comes Out With "One Strike" Policy To Protect Its Live Streaming Service From Misuse
Through the token, the hackers were able to access the complete social media profile of the affected users – allowing them to change, delete, download, and simply read anything from the specific Facebook handle.
Facebook discovered the vulnerability in September.
Initially, the company predicted that around 50 million accounts have been compromised through the breach but decided to reset an additional 40 million as a precaution step. In October, the company reduced the number to 30 million accounts, which is still a significantly large number of affected accounts.
On Tuesday, Facebook updated its blog post regarding the security breach and stated that they are re-enabling the version of the ‘view as’ feature that was not affected by the security issue.
The ‘view as’ feature was regarded to improve the users privacy and security by allowing them to see how their profile would appear in front of other users – even if they aren’t friends on Facebook.
Besides the ‘view as’ feature, the company is also adding an ‘edit public details’ button that would make it convenient for users to edit the information that is available to the public.
Today, we're making it easier for people to manage their publicly visible information on Facebook with two updates: (1) we’re bringing back the “View As Public” feature and (2) we’re adding an “Edit Public Details” button directly to profiles. pic.twitter.com/zI5bVwodjp— Facebook (@facebook) May 14, 2019
Read next: Facebook Comes Out With "One Strike" Policy To Protect Its Live Streaming Service From Misuse
Yay!!
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