A virus could have exposed the unpublished photos of 6.8 million Facebook users

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A virus could have exposed the unpublished photos of 6.8 million Facebook users



Access shared or saved snapshots in the application for later dissemination



  Facebook apologized this Friday for a virus that could have exposed unpublished photos of some 6.8 million users for days through third-party applications.

In the latest of a series of data protection incidents, the social network said that by using the Facebook login and giving permission to external applications to access the photos, this "involuntary lapse" could have been reached between the 13 and September 25 .

"When someone gives permission to an application to access their Facebook photos, we usually only give access to the images that people share in their profile," explained the director of engineering, Tomer Bar, in a message. "In this case, the virus gave potential access to access other photos such as those shared in the Marketplace or Facebook Stories."

  The expert indicated that the virus also affected photos that people download on Facebook but decide not to publish. "We store a copy of that photo so that the user has it available when he returns to the application to complete his publication," he explained.

Bar noted that affected users will be contacted and can access a customer service where they can see the images that could have been affected. " We regret what happened, " he apologized. "At the beginning of next week we will release tools for application developers that will allow them to determine which users could be reached by this virus. We will work with these developers to delete the photos of those affected ».

Facebook has been facing several cases related to its data protection practices , especially since the revelation nine months ago of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which led to parliamentary investigations and calls to boycott the network of more than 2 billion users.

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