{"id":2783,"date":"2018-10-02T05:40:17","date_gmt":"2018-10-02T05:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/will-facebook-be-fined-after-hack-attack\/"},"modified":"2018-10-02T05:40:17","modified_gmt":"2018-10-02T05:40:17","slug":"will-facebook-be-fined-after-hack-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/will-facebook-be-fined-after-hack-attack\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Facebook be fined after hack attack?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div property=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width lead\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"js-image-replace\" alt=\"Facebook page\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/D9FE\/production\/_103660855_gettyimages-75299070.jpg\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\"\/><span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Following the revelation that up to 50 million Facebook accounts may have been accessed in an attack due to a weakness in the platform&#8217;s code, many questions remain about the breach.<\/p>\n<p>In theory Facebook could be fined if it is found to be in breach of GDPR, Europe&#8217;s data protection rules.<\/p>\n<p>It has not revealed whether other services which people use their Facebook log-ins for &#8211; such as Tinder and Spotify &#8211; have also been affected.<\/p>\n<p>Facebook has now fixed the issue.<\/p>\n<p>People potentially affected were logged out of their accounts on Friday and those definitely affected were notified.<\/p>\n<p>Facebook says it has identified 50 million accounts which were certainly involved in the breach, with an extra 40 million also warned as a precautionary measure.<\/p>\n<p>It is also unknown whether networks of friends were also affected, as their data would have been visible to anyone with access to an individual&#8217;s account.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/technology-45686890\" class=\"story-body__link\">Up to 50m Facebook accounts attacked <\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">Will Facebook be fined?<\/h2>\n<p>The Wall Street Journal reports that Facebook could face a fine of up to $1.63bn (\u00a31.25bn) &#8211; 4% of its annual global turnover &#8211; which is the absolute maximum that could be imposed by the Irish Data Protection Commissioner if the firm is found to be in breach of Europe&#8217;s GDPR privacy legislation.<\/p>\n<p>As Facebook Europe is based in Ireland, this is the authority it will deal with.<\/p>\n<p>There are rules regarding the reporting of such a breach and so far Facebook has stuck to them.<\/p>\n<p>An information breach is supposed to be reported within 72 hours of discovery and this is what Facebook appears to have done &#8211; it says it discovered the breach on Tuesday, notified the commissioner on Thursday and alerted the public on Friday after fixing the vulnerability.<\/p>\n<p>The Information Commissioner says it recognises that firms may not have all the answers regarding an incident within 72 hours, and that information can be shared as it is discovered &#8211; and Facebook has admitted it is &#8220;at the very start&#8221; of its investigation.<\/p>\n<p>Data protection adviser Jon Baines from the law firm Mishcon de Reya LLP told the BBC it was impossible to know how likely a fine is at this early stage. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;No matter how good an organisation&#8217;s response is to a personal data breach, it is what went before that will count against it,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So, if Facebook is found not to have taken sufficiently robust measures [to prevent the vulnerability], it may be held to have infringed GDPR, even if its response since has been exemplary.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">Could it face legal action from its two billion members?<\/h2>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                 <span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Getty Images\/Facebook<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>A class action lawsuit has already been filed in California by two Facebook users who claim the firm was negligent in allowing accounts to be compromised, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2018-09-28\/facebook-sued-in-california-over-hack-of-50-million-accounts\" class=\"story-body__link-external\">reports Bloomberg<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.courthousenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/facebook-class-action.pdf\" class=\"story-body__link-external\">The action represents all Facebook users in the US, the paperwork says<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It accuses Facebook of a &#8220;continuing and absolute disregard&#8221; in its treatment of account holders&#8217; personal information.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">Who did it?<\/h2>\n<p>Facebook said it doesn&#8217;t know who was behind the attacks or where they are based.<\/p>\n<p>It also said it doesn&#8217;t know what &#8211; if any &#8211; personal information was accessed.<\/p>\n<p>However it did acknowledge that the weakness in its code dates back to a change that was made in July 2017, meaning the accounts were vulnerable from that time.<\/p>\n<p>While it was quite a complex process, it has been reported that there were videos on YouTube explaining how to hack the platform.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">Are other platforms affected?<\/h2>\n<p>The BBC has asked Spotify and Tinder, both of which can be accessed via a Facebook log-in, whether their services have been affected as a result of the breach.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                 <span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>&#8220;It appears it could very well affect other platforms if you have used Facebook as your means of logging in,&#8221; said prof Alan Woodward, a cyber-security expert from Surrey University.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Some password managers have been issuing warnings today to go change your passwords for that very reason.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Prof Woodward advised creating individual log-ins for each service.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/technology-45706809\">Source<\/a> by <a href=\"\">[author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright Getty Images Following the revelation that up to 50 million Facebook accounts may have been accessed in an attack due to a weakness in the platform&#8217;s code, many questions remain about the breach. In theory Facebook could be fined if it is found to be in breach of GDPR, Europe&#8217;s data protection rules. &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}