Facebook Says Users Accidentally Gave Access To Personal Data To Third-Party Apps

Earlier this week, Facebook announced that hundreds of users may have had their personal data improperly accessed by third-party app developers.

According to Facebook, security researchers notified the social media giant that two bad actors, One Audience and Mobiburn, paid developers to use malicious software developer kits in “a number of” popular apps. The company also said that it removed the offending apps and issued cease and desist letters against One Audience and Mobiburn — however, Facebook notably did not identify what apps were at fault.

“We plan to notify people whose information we believe was likely shared after they had granted these apps permission to access their profile information like name, email and gender,” Facebook said in a statement. “We encourage people to be cautious when choosing which third-party apps are granted access to their social media accounts.”

This is a fairly minor privacy issue, as far as Facebook scandals go; at least it only affected people in the hundreds, not the millions. However, it’s troubling that the company is so unwilling to publicly share info on the affected apps. And even though the problem is small in scale, it’s still the type of issue that has plagued Facebook for far too long.




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