1st
October 2018
Facebook announced that 50+ million user accounts were affected by a security breach.
We could go into the details of how it happened etc, but right NOW, we’d advise if not already done then you need to change the password for your Facebook account.
Now, if that password for your Facebook account is a password you use for any other accounts, email, bank, shopping etc, you need to change them too. This is why it is so important to have a different password for every online account you have.
A good password does not need changing often, and doesn’t need to be difficult to remember:
- Choose three random words
- Add spaces, or symbols to them
- Add a number and uppercase letter to them
- Make them at least 8 characters, but longer if possible.
For example £PierEastbourne SUNNY7
It will be disruptive for employees if they have only ever used ‘easy’ passwords – but it’s no longer an option, your business security depends on this.
The techie bit for those interested
The Facebook breach attacker exploited two bugs in the website’s ‘view as‘ feature, which shows the user how their page is displayed to others. Sources DOBs, education, hometown locations, and more, were gathered from these pages. Facebook has announced that they believe financial information was not accessed and they have since made the necessary patches.
Ninety million users of the social media platform were logged out on Friday September 28, 2018. They received a notification: “Your privacy and security are important to us,” the update reads. “We want to let you know about recent action we’ve taken to secure your account…”
At this time, no hackers or whistle blowers are associating themselves with the breach, and there hasn’t been any mentions of leaked data anywhere.
In the meantime, all Facebook users should change their passwords immediately, do a device audit, and turn on two factor authentication.