Security News
"No one will have their accounts deleted or lose functionality of WhatsApp on May 15 because of this update," the Facebook-owned messaging service said in a statement. The move marked a turnaround from its previous stance earlier this year when the company outlined plans to make the accounts inaccessible completely should users choose not to comply with the data-sharing agreement and opt not to have their WhatsApp account information shared with Facebook.
A German regulator on Tuesday slapped a three-month ban on Facebook collecting user data from WhatsApp accounts and referred the case to an EU watchdog, citing concerns about election integrity. The head of the German regulator, Johannes Caspar, said past Facebook data protection breaches as well as Germany's general election in September showed the "Dangers" of "Mass building of user profiles" that could be exploited.
The order issued today by the HmbBfDI, one of Germany's data protection commissioners, comes after WhatsApp said that it will slowly restrict account features for users who refuse to give up control of their data and have it shared with Facebook companies starting May 15th, 2021. The announcement comes after the data watchdog started urgent proceedings last month with the goal of issuing an order under GDPR guidance to stop Facebook from collecting and processing any data from WhatsApp users for their own purposes.
The company backtracks on a previous decision that gave its users a harsh ultimatum to accept sharing their data with Facebook if they want to continue using their account or, as an alternative, to delete their accounts. Facebook companies that can access WhatsApp users' data after this year's privacy changes include Facebook, Facebook Payments, Onavo, Facebook Technologies, and CrowdTangle.
Facebook has pledged to make end-to-end encryption the default across all of its messaging services - though has told users not to expect it on Facebook Messenger or Instagram Direct until 2022 "At the earliest". Gail Kent, Facebook's policy director for Messenger, shared a blog post on 30 April outlining the social media company's plans to improve the security of its messaging apps following the surge in private messaging during the COVID-19 pandemic.
UK consumer watchdog Which? has found that ad giants Google and Facebook are failing to remove online scam ads even after victims report them. A third of those reporting scam ads to Google found the same offending ads still present, while the figure was a quarter for antisocial media site Facebook.
Facebook on Wednesday said it took steps to dismantle malicious activities perpetrated by two state-sponsored hacking groups operating out of Palestine that abused its platform to distribute malware. To disrupt the adversary operations, Facebook said it took down their accounts, blocked domains associated with their activity, and alerted users it suspects were singled out by these groups to help them secure their accounts.
Social media giant Facebook today announced that it took action against two groups of hackers originating from Palestine that abused its infrastructure for malware distribution and account compromise across the Internet. As part of the shutdown operation, Facebook took down accounts, blocked domains, sent alerts to people who were targeted, and released malware hashes to the public.
Facebook said Wednesday it had disabled accounts used by the Palestinian Authority's internal intelligence organisation to spy on journalists, human rights activists and political opponents. In a report, the US social media giant also said it had identified and disabled "Politically motivated" espionage operations by a group believed to be based in Gaza and affiliated with Hamas, the Islamist rulers of the Palestinian enclave.
Facebook's long-term strategy is to desensitize users about leaked data dumps that were collected through scraping the public portion of the social network. The data also contained private phone numbers collected because of a vulnerability that Facebook fixed in August 2019, the company told BleepingComputer.