Facebook's security lapses exposed as 540 million users' details become publicly accessible

Facebook’s security woes continue as cybersecurity firm UpGuard recently uncovered detailed information about more than 540 million Facebook users was publicly accessible for months.

According to UpGuard, the massive cache of unprotected data was discovered on unsecured Amazon servers used by a Mexican social media firm.

The data sets that included users’ names, passwords, comments, interests, and likes were uploaded to Amazon’s cloud servers by two different Facebook app developers.

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Facebook’s data leaks originated at third-party companies, the first of which was data that belonged to Cultura Colectiva, a Mexican online media platform, while the second breach came from data recorded by the “At the Pool” Facebook game.

Both servers from where the leaks originated housed tons of data in the form of account names, Facebook IDs, comments, user preferences, passwords, list of Facebook friends, reactions and other data used for social media analysis.

In reference to the 22,000 leaked passwords, UpGuard stated; “The passwords are presumably for the 'At the Pool' app rather than for the user's Facebook account, but would put users at risk who have reused the same password across accounts.”

This breach is evidence of Facebook’s inability to secure information and data it gives out, only proving that the social media giant has no control over where that data ends up or how securely it is stored.

The cybersecurity firm also reported that it had notified Cultura Colectiva about the exposure in early January and Amazon by the end of the same month. However, no action was taken until Bloomberg contacted Facebook about the issue last week.

It just goes to show you that nothing has changed; despite the social media giant’s vow to crack down on data access and audit app developers with mass quantities of data, in the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica debacle. UpGuard’s findings are a cold reminder of Facebook’s limits to control the data it shares with third parties.