Facebook is in the Midst of Another Breach – And its Their Own Fault

Seriously, Facebook?  You haven’t learned your lesson yet!  If possible, I’d insert an emoji that shows a person’s hand hitting their forehead in a way that suggests that they’re missing the mark, big time.  And that’s exactly what happened with Facebook.  It’s been revealed that they have exposed private photos from up to 6.8 million users to apps that weren’t supposed to see them.  This is only being reported now, but apparently Facebook discovered the breach back in late September.  The apps in question were authorized to see a limited set of users’ photos, but a bug allowed them to see pictures they weren’t granted access to.  These included photos from people’s stories as well as photos that people uploaded but never posted. Why?  Well, Facebook saved a copy anyway!

You might be wondering why Facebook didn’t disclose this breach until now.  And one reason might be because they were already dealing with a breach in September, which was much larger than this one.  Ironically, they discovered both on September 25.

What happens if you are an affected user?  To start, you should receive a notification alerting you that your photos may have been exposed.  Facebook says they will be working with developers to delete copies of photos that they weren’t suppose to access. In total, that’s about 1,500 apps from 876 different developers.  And how did this happen?  Facebook is saying that the bug had something to do with an error related to Facebook Login and more specifically their photos API, which allows developers to access Facebook photos within their own apps.  This sounds familiar doesn’t it?  Almost like something we’ve heard before from Facebook.

All affected users had logged into a third-party app using their Facebook account and granted them some degree of access to view their photos.  Again – this all sounds familiar, doesn’t it?  Facebook has apologized, but at what point is “sorry” just not enough?

If you read this blog at all, then you’re not going to be surprised to hear that this is happening. Facebook has been and continues to be in hot water over data breaches.  You might recall the biggest, and what might be considered the worst – Cambridge Analytica. Why do I think that that one was the worst?  Well, it had the biggest impact. But what we should note is that most of the data breaches that Facebook is dealing with has been a result of something happening inside their own house.  More specifically, hackers aren’t attacking their systems in an attempt to cause issues for Facebook.  They’re doing it to themselves!

The sad truth with this latest breach is that it is a strong indicator that this will continue to happen.  But what might be worse about this truth is that Facebook has no plans to fix any of these issues.  Sure, they will start working with the developers to ensure that this doesn’t happen again, but we’ve heard that before and here we are – again.  I’ve made this comparison again and again.  But if your partner cheats on you once, you might stay with them and try to work things out.  But if your partner is continually saying that they are committed to only you, and then they cheat on you repeatedly, it’s time to break up.  And this situation is no different.  Facebook has stood in front of you, and even Congress, but the truth is, nothing is changing.  It might be time to end your relationship with Facebook.