Not that they're really hurting, but these days it sure seems like Facebook can't catch a break. Some of their issues are self-inflicted, no doubt, and it's not likely too many people will really feel bad for Mark Zuckerberg and his crew.
So whether it's Cambridge Analytica, a loss in members, a drop in stock price or simply a bad vibe people have of them, most people probably shrug and say something along the lines of the bad news probably being deserved.
Yet when their troubles directly affect us, that's a different story. And the latest issue to hit the social media site left millions of users' personal information exposed.
How many users were impacted? Try nearly 50 million
Facebook announced on Friday that an attack on their network left the personal information for nearly 50 million users exposed. The breach was discovered during the week, and it was found that the hackers exploited a part of Facebook's code that then allowed them to take over accounts.
Facebook corrected the vulnerability and notified law enforcement officials. According to a blog post, that's not all they've done.
"Second, we have reset the access tokens of the almost 50 million accounts we know were affected to protect their security," wrote Guy Rosen, VP of Product Management. "We're also taking the precautionary step of resetting access tokens for another 40 million accounts that have been subject to a 'View As' look-up in the last year. As a result, around 90 million people will now have to log back in to Facebook, or any of their apps that use Facebook Login. After they have logged back in, people will get a notification at the top of their News Feed explaining what happened.
"Third, we're temporarily turning off the 'View As' feature while we conduct a thorough security review."
Rosen went on to write that the attack itself exploited "the complex interaction of multiple issues in our code" and that it stemmed from a change that was made to their video uploading feature in July 2017.
Were you logged out of your account? If so, you were affected
As noted, roughly 90 million users had their access tokens reset, which meant they had to log out and log back into their accounts. While that may be the end of the damage, Facebook admits they are not quite sure yet.
In the blog post, Rosen wrote that since the investigation has just begun, they don't yet know if any accounts were misused or had any information accessed. They are also unsure of who is behind the attacks, nor where they are from.
It's important to understand that as Facebook investigates, it may uncover that more accounts were caught up in the hack. Therefore, they note they will immediately reset the access tokens of any additional accounts they find to have been affected.
So about their privacy issues, and what you could do right now
As part of the blog post, Rosen wrote that privacy and security are "incredibly important" to Facebook, which is why they are sorry this happened. He added there is no need for anyone to change their passwords, but that anyone who is having trouble logging back into the site should visit their Help Center.
However, if you want to change your password you, of course, have the option to do so and, if you want to take the precaution of logging out of Facebook, visit their "Security and Login" section under the settings. There you will see a list of places where you are logged into Facebook, with a one-click option to log out of them all.
Moving forward, you will want to make sure you have a password that is unique to Facebook. That way if it is ever compromised -- or another account that shares the same password is -- the damage will be limited.