Facebook says it was hacked last month

Social media company Facebook announced Friday that it was hacked last month, which has led to an ongoing investigation.

Below is a statement issued by Facebook:

Last month, Facebook Security discovered that our systems had been targeted in a sophisticated attack. This attack occurred when a handful of employees visited a mobile developer website that was compromised. The compromised website hosted an exploit which then allowed malware to be installed on these employee laptops. The laptops were fully-patched and running up-to-date anti-virus software. As soon as we discovered the presence of the malware, we remediated all infected machines, informed law enforcement, and began a significant investigation that continues to this day. We have no evidence that Facebook user data was compromised in this attack.

This article originally appeared on CNET.

[bobnjersey]

[Use NoScript and AdBlock. Leechy Facebook has no business being on other private free enterprise sites. Or, perhaps, who is paying whom? Or why?]
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please refer to the concept of the 'social graph' ... of which facebook now controls a large part due to it's number of regular users.

this is a very useful tool for businesses to connect to people ... and get those people to 'like' and buy their products and services.

what most people think of facebook is only one side of the coin (a bunch of people posting personal info and pics of themselves) ... the other side of it is unique in the history of technology ... and when leveraged correctly ... represents a powerful way to reach both new and existing customers.

refs to facebook is on these sites because those site's want eyeballs on their pages ... and getting one facebook user to your page ... and liking it ... might mean a connection to all those connected to that one facebook user ... bringing more eyeballs to their pages ... w/ each of those facebook users having a whole other network of friends that that site can tap into.

search engines used to be the primary way sites drove traffic to their pages ... and now facebook provides another ... and potentially much more powerful way to do this.

[omnibus66]

"We have no evidence that Facebook user data was compromised in this attack."

Like the hacker was going to leave "evidence" so you would know he had been there. PR people make an assumption that the rest of the world are a lot dumber than they are. And if the hacker did get "confidential" information, so what? Millions of people posting meaningless minutia so they can feel they are somebody. What a waste.

[Nix1337]

Yes, hackers can leave evidence, especially the amateur or careless ones. They can look through server logs to see if any abnormal activity occurred (i.e. querying databases, copying backups, efforts to exploit vulnerabilities, etc.). Based on what you said, it does seem that the PR people were right.

Yeah, the random Facebook posts and photos here and there might not be important. There's also security questions, passwords (which some people seem to use the same one for every website), maybe even credit card information. There's plenty of confidential information that doesn't involve posts, events, etc.

[thenitenurse]

I am not on facebook but use the golden rule of the internet which is never post anything on the internet that you don't want read back to you or see it in a courtroom.

[Think4times]

Nobody believed me when I told them FB is swine, and I don't dig on swine.

FB is a passing fad, just like Myspace.

Sad to see that so many people have become so addicted to it that they can't even stay off of it while driving.

Let it go people, let FB die.

[SL-Mania]

Who attack FB?

[Jaylah54200]

Isn't it nice that Facebook got hacked a month ago, and they're just now telling anybody about it?


"We have no evidence that Facebook user data was compromised in this attack." No evidence that it was, but they don't know for sure that it wasn't either. But don't worry. Trust Facebook. They always have your best interests at heart, don't they?

Facebook is a computer security nightmare. Anyone that trusts a word that comes out of Zuckerberg's mouth just fell off the turnip truck yesterday.

[aintfakin]

hypnotoad72 replies:
linkicon reporticon emailicon
If you closed it down, how do you know your info was truly deleted, regardless of what their policy claimed at the time?
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read "Krowster's" post below

[Krowster]

What user data? You mean the endless bantering on meaningless subjects. Why would anyone waste their time hacking FB when there are plenty of more important targets that can be had.

[Bojax39]

Krowster says: "What user data? You mean the endless bantering on meaningless subjects."

Because there is much wheat among the chaff, nothing is truly "meaningless". A good aggregation program can mine this raw data to the point that those running it can learn more about you than anybody has a right to know.

Besides, many folks think they are "in private" simply because they are sitting in their own homes. They feel relaxed and safe and spill more inside info about themselves that they really should. Especially true of kids who grew up with the web and don't have personal privacy limits in place yet.

Not only that, but many, MANY sites out there are FaceBook and Twitter partners and are more than happy to help them track your comings and goings on the web. If you find out where a person goes and what he does while there, he makes an easier target.

One thing that might help is a free piece of software from ABINE called DO NOT TRACK ME. It's a browser add-on which searches each site you visit to see if there are tracking bugs on the page, then gives you a chance to block them. I have had this for about 3 months and have blocked over 55,000 tracking attempts. For instance, I can see that at the the moment, CBS News is helping 3 social networks and 12 companies to track me. These attempts have been blocked and will be auto-blocked each time I come here.

Another helper is a search engine called STARTPAGE. This site allows you to search the web as well as GOOGLE does, but it does not track you or install cookies or log your IP or search terms.

Might give these two things a peek. It can't hurt, and may help. :-)

[hypnotoad72]

I closed mine years ago; the opt-in security policies were a waste of any serious person's time, never mind the terms of conditions. Facebook is a parasite.

[aintfakin]

This hack didnt affect me.
I closed my account down a while back.
The BS far outweighed any benefits.
One thing that does pizz me off is the facebook tentacles that have penetrated a lot of other comment sites

[hypnotoad72]

Use NoScript and AdBlock. Leechy Facebook has no business being on other private free enterprise sites. Or, perhaps, who is paying whom? Or why?

[hypnotoad72]

If you closed it down, how do you know your info was truly deleted, regardless of what their policy claimed at the time?

Remember, we value money more than ethics...