Facebook says it was hacked. The site, they say, was targeted. Members – and there are more than one billion of you – hold on to your data. Facebook management reported a recent and “sophisticated” hack attack on Friday, says Fox Business on Feb. 15.
“Last month, Facebook security discovered that our systems had been targeted in a sophisticated attack,” Facebook blogged to its membership. “The attack occurred when a handful of employees visited a mobile developer website that was compromised.”
That doesn’t say much. Compromised in what way? And if Facebook was a specific target, how did the malign website know when the employees would be vulnerable?
No answers there, but apparently Facebook was not the only target hacked. “Facebook was not alone in this attack. It is clear that others were attacked and infiltrated recently as well.”
And, indeed, there appear to have been others. Twitter admitted it had recently been hacked, and that about a quarter of a million user accounts were compromised. The hackers apparently are looking for basic data, such as user names and email addresses. People who regularly post too much information are probably cringing in fear of what might happen – floods of spam being the simplest outcome. Too many questions remain.
Several newspaper websites have been recently hacked as well, but they have blamed the attacks on Chinese groups, unhappy with recent reporting. This may or may not be connected. America depends upon daily Internet use to keep the wheels spinning. But users need to control what they post.
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