Facebook ’s stunning disclosure of amassive literary hack on Fridayin which attackers gained approach tokens to at least 50 million account — bypassing surety measures and potentially giving them full command of both profiles and linked apps — has already call forth the scourge of a $ 1.63 billion dollar fine in the European Union , according to the Wall Street Journal .
The bug , which exploited flaw in the land site ’s “ View As ” and video recording uploader feature film to gain entree to the story , storm Facebook to reset access token for 50 million user and reset those for 40 million others as a precaution . ( That signify if you were logged out of your devices , you were affected . ) Facebook has not said whether the attackers attempted to pull out data from the unnatural profiles , but frailty president of product direction Guy Rosen state reporters they had attempted to reap private data from Facebook ’s systems , according to the New York Times . Rosen also said Facebook was unable to determine the extent to which third - party apps could have been compromised .
https://twitter.com/embed/status/1045786217713786880
It rest unclear whether the attackers could have gained access to the most sensitive info stored on the mesh like lineal subject matter . Facebookhas saidthe attack was highly advanced , their reply is in its early stages , and they may never know who was behind it . When Gizmodo reach out out for more details this weekend , a Facebook representative directed us to theirprior statementson the attack , which contain only the details previously available .
I asked Facebook how sophisticated the cyberpunk were and whether this could be nation - state bodily function . Rosen says attack was " complex " and leveraged three multiple bug that interacted together . " We may never roll in the hay " the identity of the hacker , Rosen adds .
— Dustin Volz ( @dnvolz)September 28 , 2018
A ) Nation state do not always use more sophisticated TTPs than criminal organizations.2 ) body politic states do not always have more advanced TTPs than criminal organizations.3 ) Nation states are n’t necessarily afraid to get in touch with the services of condemnable organizations .
— Lesley Carhart ( @hacks4pancakes)September 28 , 2018
harmonise to the Journal , the European Union ’s top privacy guard dog for Facebook , Ireland ’s Data Protection Commission , is also shin to teach information about what exactly happened :
Ireland ’s Data Protection Commission , which is Facebook ’s lead privacy regulator in Europe , said Saturday that it has exact more info from the company about the nature and musical scale of the breach , including which EU occupier might be bear upon .
In an emailed statement , the regulator say it is “ concerned at the fact that this breach was discovered on Tuesday and affects many one thousand thousand of user accounts but Facebook is unable to clear up the nature of the breach and the risk for users at this point . ”
The Journal drop a line that the rupture may trigger the maximal fines possible under Europe ’s recently enacted General Data Privacy Regulation , which is four percent of a firm ’s world-wide revenue for the anterior yr . That would be $ 1.63 billion :
Under GDPR , companies that do n’t do enough to safeguard their exploiter ’ data risk a maximum mulct of € 20 million ( $ 23 million ) , or 4 % of a firm ’s global one-year revenue for the prior class , whichever is higher . Facebook ’s maximum fine would be $ 1.63 billion using the large computing .
The police also require companies to notify regulator of falling out within 72 hours , under threat of a maximum amercement of 2 % of world - wide revenue .
As the Journal mention , European regulators have not used the GDPR to levy amercement yet and it remains to be seen whether they would apply the maximal penalisation or any at all , especially if they square off Facebook “ require appropriate steps to safeguard its users ’ information before the hacker ” and “ has cooperated or been in at least fond submission . ” However , the GDPR contains recommendation that companies stash away as little user data as necessary , potentially exposing Facebook to high indebtedness . The European Commission alsorecently demand Facebookbetter break to user “ how their data is being used or face consumer - protection indorsement in several land , ” the paper added .
In the U.S. , where no equivalent to the GDPR exists , the possibility of such a fine for this incident is more distant . Facebook is still facing a Federal Trade Commission investigating into whether several data breaches include theCambridge Analytica scandaland a data - scraping incident thataffected most of its 2.2 billion usersviolated a 2011 consent decree on substance abuser secrecy , which could ensue in record amercement of over a billion dollar sign . It ’s unclear what role the current drubbing could fiddle in that investigation , but an FTC chief , Rohit Chopra , tweeted “ I want answer . ”
I want answers.https://t.co/kZSttt4fmF
— Rohit Chopra ( @chopracfpb)September 28 , 2018
Facebook is also facing unprecedented imperativeness from both high - profile Conservative angry aboutunfounded claimsthat West Coast - base technical school companies regularly censor them . at the same time , it still facing pressure from privacy advocates maddened about anterior privacy breaches and lately saw the departure of the founders of subsidiariesInstagramandWhatsappamid reports of mogul conflict with their owner . Facebook ’s stockprecipitously droppedin July amid flagging growth numbers and has not recover . It would be disingenuous to pretend that the concern driving the recoil against Facebook are totally bipartisan , but the internet has tread well into dangerous territory — and if it bend out attackers gained entree to and misapply tender user data , it could get much worsened , apace .
Facebook begin notifying users over the weekend of the breach , but it sent it out in the form of a posting posted at the top of intelligence feed titled “ An Important Security Update ” take the same information sent to newsperson . Presumably the social media behemoth will begin releasing more information about the severance soon , but the radio quiet throughout the weekend indicates that it is either still in the process of gathering that data or is deciding how to break it .
[ Wall Street Journal ]
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