As Facebook Faces Security Problem, It Becomes Ultimate Hack

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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According to a programmer who tracks Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB), one of its major features has been hacked. Khalil Shreateh writes that:

Days ago i discovered a serious facebook vulnerability that allows a facebook user to post to all facebook users timeline even they are not in his friend list .

The timeline is among the most important features for Facebook users.

Khalil apparently even posted a description of the problem on founder Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page.

The news is a reminder of which websites have to be included on the ultimate hack list for malicious programmers. A recent attack on the Outbrain links at Time Warner Inc.’s (NYSE: TWX) Time magazine, the company’s CNN site and the flagship of the Washington Post Co. (NYSE: WPO) by the the Syrian Electronic Army is a reminder that a group that is unlikely to be among the world’s most skilled hackers can breach sites that likely have sophisticated protection.

A “takedown” of Facebook would cripple what is usually considered one of the most widely used sites on the Web, although Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) often vies for that title. Facebook has well over a billion users. It is estimated that Facebook has more than 200,000 servers in data centers spread across the world. Such a system cannot possibly have security protection that will fend off the most skilled programmers indefinitely. If these programmers can breach U.S. government sites and those of major defense contractors, they must be ahead of the ability of software companies that build walls to protect these same sites.

Depending on what research is used, including data from Facebook itself, tens upon tens of millions of people use Facebook each day. A relatively high number of those people spend an hour or more per day on the social network. A major hack of Facebook would crash a system that may be among the largest communications tools in the world.

A hack of Facebook may not be equivalent to one of the Department of Defense. However, a breach in the social network’s collection of users’ data and identities could set back social network use by years, as well as make the public wary of giving out any personal data at all online.

Someone, or someones, sometime soon will make a major hack to Facebook. It is the Holy Grail of hacks, which makes it irresistible.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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