Cyber attack on Facebook leaves 50 million users data at risk

Around 90 million users have been forced to log out of their account

A cyber attack on Facebook has left the personal information of 50 million users of the social media website at risk, the company had admitted. Employees discovered the security breach on Tuesday, however, the flaw has existed for over a year, with attackers exploiting a feature in Facebook’s code that allowed them to take over user accounts. The bug is due to a feature called "View As" that allows people to see what their Facebook profile looks like to others. “We’re taking it really seriously,” Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s chief executive, said in a conference call with reporters. “We have a major security effort at the company that hardens all of our surfaces.” He added: “I’m glad we found this. But it definitely is an issue that this happened in the first place.” More than 50 million Facebook users subject to the breach were forced to log out of their accounts early Friday, along with an additional 40 million as a security measure. "We have yet to determine whether these accounts were misused or any information accessed. We also don’t know who’s behind these attacks or where they’re based," Facebook said. "We’re working hard to better understand these details — and we will update this post when we have more information, or if the facts change."