Ride the Lightning

Facebook Data Breach Involved 6 Million Users

June 24, 2013

Reuters reported that Facebook announced on Friday that it had inadvertently exposed 6 million users' phone numbers and email addresses to unauthorized viewers. The data leaks began in 2012 and reportedly were caused by "a technical glitch" – not a very informative explanation. Apparently, Facebook users who downloaded contact data for their list of friends obtained additional information that they were not supposed to have.

The leak was fixed within 24 hours of its discovery and Facebook issued an "important message" on its blog saying that, "We currently have no evidence that this bug has been exploited maliciously and we have not received complaints from users or seen anomalous behavior on the tool or site to suggest wrongdoing."

The company added, "it's still something we're upset and embarrassed by, and we'll work doubly hard to make sure nothing like this happens again."

On the plus side, I do give Facebook credit for leading successful negotiations, along with Google, Microsoft, Apple and Yahoo, that permit the companies to reveal the approximate number of user information requests that each company has received, including secret national security orders. As George Orwell seems more and more a prophet, this was at least a step in the right direction.