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Facebook's recent hacking hit 30 million people, less than the company originally thought, but it compromised sensitive information such as people's phone numbers and email addresses.
In an interview with reporters on Friday, Facebook's vice president of product management, Guy Rosen, detailed the type of personal information that attackers could have obtained in what was probably the biggest data breach in the world. story of the giant of social networks. By the end of September, when Facebook had explained the hacking in detail, executives thought that about 50 million people had been compromised, but after a few more weeks of investigation, the company reduced the number by 30 million.
Hackers could have taken information such as names and contact information such as phone numbers and email addresses on 15 million Facebook users, Rosen said.
For an additional 14 million people affected by the hacking, Facebook thinks the attackers have obtained the same information, as well as additional details such as sex, relationship status, religion, birth dates, 10 Last check-ins, the 15 most recent searches and the type of device that they use to access Facebook. The hackers could have obtained this information if people had listed their data on their Facebook profile, said the company.
Facebook does not believe that hackers have obtained information from the other million people compromised by the attack, which began on September 14 and that Facebook said they were able to stop September 27th.
Rosen said that other Facebook services such as Instagram, Oculus, WhatsApp or Workplace were not affected by the attack, nor were any third-party applications allowing users to use their account. Facebook to connect. In response to the hacking, the company has developed coding tools for third-party developers that can help them determine if their attacks may have impacted their users, Rosen said.
Although Facebook informed the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the attack, the latter "asked us not to disclose additional details that could jeopardize their investigation," Rosen said.
Rosen would not say which specific countries were affected by the hacking or which entities are suspected by Facebook. However, Rosen said it was unlikely that the attackers would be motivated by political considerations.
"We have no reason to believe that this specific attack was linked to mid-term negotiations," Rosen said of the upcoming US elections.
On Thursday, Facebook announced the deletion of 559 pages and 251 accounts that, in its opinion, were intentionally misleading and gave spam to people with "sensational political content." This purge was part of the company's ongoing efforts to prevent its service from broadcasting misinformation before the mid-term elections, similar to the way Russian entities shared their propaganda on the social network before the start of the elections. 2016 US presidential election.
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Rosen also said that Facebook is cooperating with other authorities, including the Irish Data Protection Commission. The commission, which is the main regulator of the European Union on the protection of privacy, announced in early October that it would investigate the violation of data to determine if Facebook violated the general data protection regulations (RGP) of the EU.
To determine if a user's Facebook account was compromised by hacking, Facebook created a support page that tells users if they have been impacted and what kind of data can be disclosed.
"We're sorry this has happened," said Rosen. "We are fully engaged in this work and we will do everything in our power to win the trust of people."
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