Sunday, January 30, 2011

Facebook Blames Bug For 'hacking'

Facebook has mentioned "a bug" was to censure for an unusual posting purporting to advance from Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg.

Overnight, the mysterious summary was posted to the Facebook air blower page in the name of the 26-year aged billionaire founder.

It called is to site to turn a "social business" with investment from its users.

The summary led to conjecture that the the site had been hacked or Mr Zuckerberg's account was compromised.

Initially Facebook would not criticism but it has given released a statement: "A bug enabled position postings by without official authorization people on a handful of pages, The bug has been fixed," the matter read.

"It was a handful of open Facebook pages and no personal user accounts were affected," it added.

The message, left in the name of Mr Zuckerberg, read: "Let the hacking begin: If Facebook needs money, instead of going to the banks, because doesn't Facebook let its users deposit in Facebook in a amicable way?

"Why not renovate Facebook in to a 'social business' the way Nobel Prize leader Muhammad Yunus described it?"

Muhammad Yunus is a Nobel Peace Prize leader and the owner of the Grameen Bank, that offers tiny loans to people who have no material to obtain proposed in business.

The summary moreover related to a not long ago edited Wikipedia essay about amicable business and asked readers: "what do you think?"

In addition, it related to a page is to Hacker Cup, an annual programming eventuality organized by Facebook. Many have interpreted this as a pointer that the hacker feels they should win the competition.

A minute review of the summary by the Guardian journal incited up a few clues about the hacker, but has unsuccessful to pick out them.

The mysterious Facebook post captivated scarcely 2,000 explanation before it was taken down, but not before technology blog TechCrunch speckled it .

The page, that has scarcely 3 million fans, has moreover been changed to a new residence , according to assistant professor Graham Cluley of safety definite Sophos.

He speculated before Facebook's elaboration about what could be at the back the incident.

He mentioned that because the site was a open air blower page, that are used to publicize all from businesses and products to bands and open figures, it was expected to be run by Facebook staff.

"It's considerably probable that other people than Zuckerberg had access," he said.

"It could have been one of those that got hacked," he said.

The hacker might have got access to the account, he said, around a feeble selected cue or spyware commissioned on an employee's P.C. that stole the password.

He mentioned the cue could moreover have been stolen when an worker was accessing the unsecured chronicle of the site over an unencrypted wi-fi network.

Last year, a apparatus called Firesheep was released that that done it easy for any person pity an unsecure connection to squeeze login data for many unsecure sites, inclusive Facebook.

"I can simply suppose that something similar to that could have happened," mentioned Mr Cluley.

Facebook has only released new collection directed at shoring up user's accounts against collection similar to FireSheep, by permitting people to always link up around a secure connection.

However, Mr Cluley certified that the site might not have been hacked at all and the post might have been done by a discontented employee.

"The other probability is that [Mr Zuckerberg] strode divided from his table for a whilst and someone grabbed it and typed the summary in."

"Although you wouldn't regard that would do sufficient for their work prospects".

The situation comes days after the account of French boss Nicolas Sarkozy was moreover hacked to indicate that he was resigning.

"As a broad order this can come about to anyone," mentioned Mr Cluley.

"Just because a person is important or good well known doesn't meant that all that is posted from their account is legitimate."

Mr Zuckerberg's in isolation account appears not to have been affected .

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