Sometime this last Christmas , Facebook ’s Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan noticed strange thing happening in Tunisia . Thanks toThe Atlantic ’s Alexis Madrigalwe now have intercourse what those strange things were : A country ’s terrifying attempt to slip its citizens ’ Facebook passwords .
The reason for the mass password theft looks like security review . Tunisian citizens , bloggers , and activist were using Facebook as a creature to cursorily spread information regarding what was going on in the country as polite agitation loom . But unless Facebook figured out what was happening — and soon — that tool was at risk of infection :
After more than ten days of intensive investigation and field of study , Facebook ’s security team realized something very , very bad was going on . The nation ’s cyberspace service providers were range a malicious piece of code that was read users ’ login entropy when they perish to sites like Facebook .
By January 5 , it was absolved that an intact country ’s Charles Frederick Worth of countersign were in the operation of being stolen right in the midst of the large political upheaval in two decade .
The Facebook squad worked quickly to find solutions that would assure the affected users ’ information while attempting to remain upstage from the political return :
This was but a hack that required a technical reply . “ At its core , from our viewpoint , it ’s a protection issue around watchword and making sure that we protect the integrity of passwords and account , ” [ Sullivan ] said . “ It was very much a black and bloodless security issue and less of a political consequence . ”
In the oddment , Facebook managed to implement some protection tweaks which put a stop to the password theft and minimized the legal injury cause by passwords which were already stolen . you may read the item of how the social networking site ’s security squad manage to action this project over atThe Atlantic . The taradiddle is an incredibly captivating one — and this time , Facebook is the hero . [ The Atlantic ]
Illustration by Alex Hoyt / The Atlantic
FacebookHackersHackingPasswordsSecurity
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