How would you feel if you login to your Facebook account only to see strange friend requests, wall-posts and a different profile picture? This is exactly what happened to a Georgian family when they logged into an unknown Facebook account from their mobile phones and gained full access to private information of others.
According to the AP News report, the security flaw was caused by problems in AT&T’s network equipment which enables connection between the user’s mobile phone and the internet.
Mother Fran, and her two daughters, Mari & Candace, were suspicious about this strange activity when they managed to login to Facebook accounts from their mobile phone without being prompted for user name & password. Mari’s daughter, Candace quickly realized that she was accessing a different account when she saw the photograph of a white man instead of her own profile picture.
The AP news story also tracks back to a similar incident that had happened with 25 year old Stephen Simburg. AT & T was in question again at that time as Stephen was using the service provider’s connection to access Facebook on his mobile phone. Stephen logged onto the account of a young woman, searched for her email id and wrote to her only to find that they had never met. However, The exact cause of the problem in Stephen’s case couldn’t be revealed as he didn’t report the issue to AT & T.
According to the news story, it is not clear whether such episodes are rare or simply not reported. But if we go by what experts say there is every possibility of such problems occurring on e-mail services and even a PC.
While we understand that Facebook doesn’t have anything to do with this problem, such incidents raise serious questions about user data security. Despite all the efforts to guard your sensitive information you cannot do much if your provider’s network problem causes leakage of personal data.
Before you can come to a conclusion that Facebook had nothing to do with this problem, there needs to be clear knowledge of the exact circumstances and how Facebook keeps a session authentication alive? Maybe Facebook needs a more secure handshake? Is IP and cookie the criteria to extend a session? Is this kinda the same glitch as when I click news feed and some things show and I have to refresh several times to feel the true contents are actually there as things seem to randomly come and go? Should Facebook use an extra layer like an ActiveX control to better supervise a valid connection?
Comment by Larry — January 18, 2010 @ 6:52 am
not a big deal
Comment by Sam — January 18, 2010 @ 8:30 am
Big big fail.
I wouldn't trust my private info with anybody, let alone anyone who has access to my Facebook account. Private info means your life – that's why I have all my private info backed up on a secure USB flash drive.
Comment by Avory — January 19, 2010 @ 5:03 am
This is just plain scary. End of story. It's not the fact that Facebook can be accessed in this way but the fact that so much of individual's personal information is stored on Facebook. If somebody with ill intent can use this "glitch" the effects would frightening.
Comment by Mittee — January 19, 2010 @ 5:36 am