Milk was a Bad Choice: Millions of Facebook Records Found on Amazon Cloud Servers

I wanna say something. I’m gonna put it out there; if you like it, you can take it, if you don’t send it right back…. I want you to care more about your personally identifiable information (PII). Here’s why.

On Wednesday, millions of Facebook users’ data was exposed on public Amazon cloud servers by developers. The duration of the breach is unknown, however some of the information on these servers was sensitive and included information such as e-mails and passwords.

Facebook used to allow anyone making an application on its site to obtain information on the people using the application, and those users’ friends. Once the data has been transferred to the application developers, the application company can choose to do whatever they want with your information. I feel like we need to let this sink in for a second. This means if your friend had an application that you’ve literally never heard of or know about, the third party company who developed the application now has access to your information.

Just last year, Facebook started auditing thousands of apps and suspended hundreds until they could make sure they weren’t mishandling user data. Facebook now offers rewards for researchers who find problems with its third-party apps.

If only there was a dislike button for this. Thanks A LOT Mark Zuckerberg.

Source: @forbes, @bloomberg