Facebook once had a vulnerability that exposed phone numbers
Facebook advertisers can retrieve phone numbers of social network users via email.
Facebook encourages users to provide their mobile phone numbers to keep their accounts secure. However, a recently discovered vulnerability could allow advertisers to access members' phone numbers via email.
|
A Facebook vulnerability could have allowed advertisers to obtain users' phone numbers. |
Facebook resolved the issue last week and paid a team of researchers from the US, France and Germany $5,000 for their findings.Facebook says there is no evidence that the vulnerability was exploited to harvest phone numbers. It is also not an easy method to do.
Exposing users' phone numbers is a serious violation of Facebook's data policy. The social network states: "We do not share users' personally identifiable information with advertisers unless you give us permission."
Professor Alan Mislove, a member of the research team, said the incident exposed many problems with data policy. "In fact, Facebook and Google do not directly sell data, but indirectly broker it."