What Instagram users need to know about Facebook's security breach – TechCrunch



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Even if you never connect to Facebook In itself, the latest apps and services you use could be impacted by the latest bad news from Facebook.

In a follow-up call on Friday's revelation that Facebook has suffered a security breach affecting at least 50 million accounts, the company said that Instagram users are not out of the box – nor any other third-party service using Facebook Login. Facebook Login is the tool that allows users to log in with a Facebook account instead of traditional login credentials. Many users choose it as a convenient way to connect to various applications and services.

Third-party applications and sites also affected

Due to the nature of hacking, Facebook can not rule out the fact that attackers have also accessed any Instagram account. account linked to a Facebook account assigned via Facebook Login. Nevertheless, it should be remembered that even if Facebook can not exclude this activity, the company has no evidence (yet) of this type of activity.

"The vulnerability was so on Facebook, but these access tokens allow someone to use it." [a connected account] as if they were the account holder themselves, this means that they could have access to other third-party applications using Facebook, "says vice president of product management Facebook, Guy Rosen.

"Now that we have reset all these access tokens as part of the security protection for user accounts, developers who use Facebook can detect that these access tokens have been reset, identify those users, and you need to sign in to these third-party apps again.

Rosen reiterated that there is a lot of abuse on Facebook, including the extent to which the attackers manipulated the three security bugs in question to gain access to external accounts via Facebook Login .

"The vulnerability was on Facebook itself and we have not yet determined, since the investigation is really early, [what was] the exact nature of the misuse and if there was access to Instagram accounts, for example, "said Rosen.

Anyone with a Facebook account affected by the violation – you should have been automatically logged out and will receive a notification – will need to unlink and link their Instagram account to Facebook to continue posting to Facebook.

How to link your Facebook account and do a security check

To link your Instagram account to Facebook, if you'd like, open Instagram Settings> Linked Accounts and check the box next to Facebook. Click Unlink and confirm your selection. If you want to reconnect Instagram with Facebook, you need to select Facebook from the Linked Accounts menu and log in with your credentials in the normal way.

If you know that your Facebook account has been affected by the violation, it is advisable to check for suspicious activity on your account. You can do it on Facebook via the Security and Connection menu.

You must browse the listed activity to make sure you do not see anything that does not look like you – connections from other countries, for example. If you are concerned or just want to read it safely, you can always find the "Logout All Sessions" link by scrolling down the page.

Although we know a little more about Facebook's biggest security vulnerability so far, we do not have much of it yet. Expect a lot of additional information in the coming days and weeks as Facebook investigates the damage and passes this information on to its users. We will do the same thing.

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