Hacker backpedals on his brazen threat to remove Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook account

Can this hacker really remove Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook account?

A Taiwanese bounty hunter said this week that he would delete Mark Zuckerberg's personal account on Facebook and promised to broadcast the attack live on Facebook.

Now, in an unexpected turn, he backed down on his promise to live off Zuckerberg's account – but not on the claim that he would have found a serious vulnerability on Facebook.

The scandal erupted for the first time when Bloomberg published a Facebook event created by the 23-year-old Taiwanese pirate Chang Chi-yuan, in which the hacker described "the live broadcast of [Facebook] the account of founder Zuck. "

But within hours of Bloomberg's release of the story and other leading news outlets, Chang wrote another long Facebook post based on his promise to publicly demonstrate that he could actually suppress the Facebook account of Mark Zuckerberg.

In his new position, Chang said he did not expect his event, which was sent to more than 27,000 people, to become viral. He said the event was only meant for the people of Taiwan. However, he reiterated that he had discovered a method allowing him to delete Zuckerberg's account. He posted screenshots of his bug submission on Facebook.

Chang Chi-yuan's claims originally sparked the plot, especially since it was not just about anyone boasting the Internet and no backup. At 23, Chang Chi-yuan has made a name for himself in hacking communities as a bug bounty hunter, that is, someone who finds bugs in them. software and services and discloses them in a responsible manner to the company that owns them. In return, companies usually provide some kind of monetary reward with variables depending on each company.

Mr. Chang has been invited to local TV shows to discuss his allegations of piracy. He was sued by a local bus operator for hacking their systems to buy a ticket for 3 cents. Manufacturers of the Line Messaging App have named Chang Chi-yuan in their Hall of Fame for its 2016 Safety Bonus Program on Line Safety and have classified it as a "special contributor" on their website.

Even Facebook itself has written Chang Chi-yuan's name on its thank-you page for its white hat, saying "on behalf of more than a billion users, we would like to thank the following people for disclosing us so responsible "on his thank you list 2016

Mashable has contacted Facebook about Chang Chi-yuan's exploitation claims, and we will update this message when we get news.