As the Facebook critics and security experts warned the population regarding the security leak issues of the social media after the Facebook-Cambridge Analytic Scandal, De Ceukelaire, a security researcher became increasingly dubious of the site. He is also the one responsible for identifying the leak, which has been affecting around 120 million users for several years.
Ceukelaire stated that he recorded all the applications his friends used in their everyday lives, and studied them. Out of all those applications, it was Facebook which struck him as suspicious, primarily because of its NameTests. He discovered that these quizzes displayed users’ information in a Java script, which could be obtained by any website, upon submitting a request. This, he verified by creating a fresh website, connecting it to NameTests on Facebook. His fears were realized when he was able to steal personal information of users.
Deleting the Facebook application is not the way to avoid one’s information getting stolen. Even if someone removes their application, it continues to supply his/her personalized data, until and unless he manually deletes all the cookies.
Ceukelairen reported about this flaw to Facebook, and the social media fixed this issue a few days ago, but the data that has been lost and manipulated, cannot ever be regained.
Ceukelaire stated that he recorded all the applications his friends used in their everyday lives, and studied them. Out of all those applications, it was Facebook which struck him as suspicious, primarily because of its NameTests. He discovered that these quizzes displayed users’ information in a Java script, which could be obtained by any website, upon submitting a request. This, he verified by creating a fresh website, connecting it to NameTests on Facebook. His fears were realized when he was able to steal personal information of users.
Deleting the Facebook application is not the way to avoid one’s information getting stolen. Even if someone removes their application, it continues to supply his/her personalized data, until and unless he manually deletes all the cookies.
Ceukelairen reported about this flaw to Facebook, and the social media fixed this issue a few days ago, but the data that has been lost and manipulated, cannot ever be regained.
