
Enlarge / Facebook reset login tokens for 90 million accounts as it patched bugs that allowed 50 million accounts to be compromised. (credit: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
In a call with press today, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the attack targeted the “view as” feature, “code that allowed people to see what other people were seeing when they viewed their profile,” Zuckerberg said. The attackers were able to use this feature, combined with the video uploader feature, to harvest access tokens. A surge in usage of the feature was detected on September 16, triggering the investigation that eventually discovered the breach.
“The attackers did try to query our APIs—but we do not yet know if any private information was exposed,” Zuckerberg said. The attackers used the profile retrieval API, which provides access to the information presented in a user’s profile page, but there’s no evidence yet that Facebook messages or other private data was viewed. No credit card data or other information was exposed, according to Facebook.
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