Facebook Vulnerability Allows Hacker to Alter Conversations -- Security Today

Facebook Vulnerability Allows Hacker to Alter Conversations

By Sydny Shepard
Jun 07, 2016

An online security company, Check Point Software Technologies, found a security flaw in Facebook’s Messenger platform that allowed hackers to change messages in a Facebook chat after they had been sent.

It goes like this – someone could send you a link, any link that is not malicious in any way. A hacker then swoops in and replaces that chat message with a different link that could send you to a malware installation package, tricking you into infecting your system.

The vulnerability, explained in detail on Check Point’s blog, is exploited by finding a message’s unique “message_id” identifier then altering the message’s content and sending it back to Facebook which accepts the new content as genuine, without alerting the recipient of the change.

According the Check Point, the vulnerability was found earlier this month, and Facebook has been notified. The social media network moved quickly to eradicate the problem.

The Facebook Messenger vulnerability comes as founding father of Facebook, Mark Zuckerburg’s credentials to sites like Pinterest and Twitter were leaked as a likely result of the LinkedIn password hack in revealed in May. Other sites like MySpace and Tumblr have been battling password leaks as well.

About the Author

Sydny Shepard is the Executive Editor of Campus Security & Life Safety.

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