Facebook Hit By Another Security Breach; 6.8 Million Users' Photos Exposed

Welcome to another episode of “Facebook and Security Breaches.” Yesterday, Facebook announced that a Photo API bug has allowed app developers to access photos of 5.6 million users.

The bug gave access to timeline photos, Facebook stories, Marketplace photos and even the photos uploaded by users on Facebook that they never intended to share.

According to Facebook, the bug started its work on September 13th and ran for 12 days until the social media company identified it on September 25th.

Facebook, then informed the European Union’s Office Of the Data Protection Commissioner (IDPC) about the data breach on November 22nd. The privacy watchdog started a statutory inquiry into the matter.

Facebook’s official statement read, “Currently, we believe this may have affected up to 6.8 million users and up to 1,500 apps built by 876 developers. The only apps affected by this bug were ones that Facebook approved to access the photos API and that individuals had authorized to access their photos.”

While issuing an apology, Facebook has said that it will roll out a tool for app developers that will help them identify the users that might have been impacted by this breach of privacy.

Also, Facebook will notify the users individually who have been affected by the Photo API bug throughout the next few days.

Currently, the company has not disclosed the names of the apps that have accessed users’ photos, and there is no official count of the number of photos that have been compromised.

Facebook is suffering through one of the worst phases with data breaches happening in quick succession and reports of internal conflict owing to the mishandling of issues by concerned executives.

Do you think this photo API bug is the nail in the coffin and we should quit Facebook? Express your views in the comments.