Facebook Says 50 Million Accounts May Have Been Breached in New Attack
*By Carlo Versano*
Facebook shares dropped Friday afternoon after the company announced that 50 million accounts may have been compromised by hackers exploiting a security vulnerability.
Guy Rosen, the company's VP of product management, said the breach was discovered on Tuesday and affected its "View As" feature, which allows people to see what their own profile looks like to someone else. Rosen said the vulnerability has been patched.
"We’re taking this incredibly seriously and wanted to let everyone know what’s happened and the immediate action we’ve taken to protect people’s security," Rosen, wrote in a [blog post](https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/09/security-update/) on Friday.
Facebook ($FB) discovered that unknown attackers manipulated a piece of code that allowed them to steal security tokens that usually keep accounts logged in.
The post was light on detail and was seemingly intended to show the company's efforts at transparency, just months after it was pilloried for a mishandling of the Cambridge Analytica breach.
After that scandal, CEO Mark Zuckerberg [said](https://m.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10104712037900071) in a Facebook post, "We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can't, then we don't deserve to serve you."
The U.S. approved updated COVID-19 vaccines Monday, hoping to rev up protection against the latest coronavirus strains and blunt any surge this fall and winter.
The Biden administration has cleared the way for the release of five American citizens detained in Iran by issuing a blanket waiver for international banks to transfer $6 billion in frozen Iranian money from South Korea to Qatar without fear of U.S. sanctions. In addition, as part of the deal, the administration has agreed to release five Iranian citizens held in the United States.
The U.S. government is taking aim at what has been an indomitable empire: Google’s ubiquitous search engine that has become the internet’s main gateway.
President Joe Biden departed Vietnam after meetings with President Vo Van Thuong along with other high-ranking officials, following his participation at the G20 summit in India.
