 Facebook has admitted having a “security issue” with nearly 50 million accounts which had their “access tokens” compromised. The social media giant has reset tokens for another 40 million accounts as a “precaution.” The issue affected nearly 50 million accounts, which would require users to re-enter their passwords. The security issue was discovered by the company’s engineers on Tuesday. Hackers have been apparently able to fetch the so-called “access tokens” – digital keys, which allow a user to stay logged into Facebook and to not re-enter their passwords each time they use the application. “Our investigation is still in its early stages. But it's clear that attackers exploited a vulnerability in Facebook's code that impacted "View As", a feature that lets people see what their own profile looks like to someone else,” the tech giant said in a statement. The vulnerability has been already fixed, according to Facebook, and the “View As” feature has been temporarily disabled. “This attack exploited the complex interaction of multiple issues in our code. It stemmed from a change we made to our video uploading feature in July 2017, which impacted "View As." The attackers not only needed to find this vulnerability and use it to get an access token, they then had to pivot from that account to others to steal more tokens,” Facebook stated. Damage done by the attack is yet to be evaluated, it remains unclear whether the affected accounts “were misused or any information accessed.” Source of the attack and who was behind it also remain unidentified, according to Facebook.  Microsoft Surface laptops are now eligible for “recommended” status in Consumer Reports’ ratings. Last year we removed that designation because of poor predicted reliability in comparison with laptops from other brands. Reliability evaluations are based on surveys of our members. We now have results from our latest survey. “Microsoft’s reliability is now on par with most other laptop brands,” allowing its products to be recommended, says Martin Lachter, a senior research associate at Consumer Reports. This is the first year that brand reliability is being factored into the Overall Scores for many products rated by Consumer Reports. Owner satisfaction, which is based on the same survey of our members, is also being incorporated into the Overall Score. The new reliability scores are ready just as we’ve completed our lab testing of the recently released Microsoft Surface Go. That 10-inch Surface Go, released in August, is meant to be a two-in-one laptop, though a keyboard must be purchased separately. The Surface Go isn’t receiving a CR recommendation, but that’s based on the results of lab testing, not member survey data. The Surface Go is the only Surface that isn’t getting a recommendation; the company’s other models, including the Surface Pro, Surface Laptop, and Surface Book 2, do score well enough to be recommended. (Based on feedback from Microsoft, we are testing and rating these devices as laptops; last year we considered some Surface products separately as laptops and as tablets.) Learn more by visiting OUR FORUM.  Cloudflare announces today support for encrypted Server Name Indication, a mechanism that makes it more difficult to track user's browsing. A web server can host multiple websites, with all of them sharing the same external IP address. This is possible through virtual hosting, a method that allows splitting the resources among available domain names. Server Name Indication (SNI) is a component of the TLS protocol that makes it possible for a server to present different TLS certificates that validate and secure the connection to websites behind the same IP address. An application with SNI support includes the hostname it is trying to reach the beginning of the handshake process with the server. This initial conversation in the TLS negotiation process happens in the clear, exposed to every node along the way, allowing an observer to track users or to influence (block, slow down) the connection to websites it does not sympathize. An encrypted SNI (ESNI) eliminates the risk of exposing the destination name. Learn more on OUR FORUM. |
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