DailyPost 769
FACEBOOK HAS DONE IT AGAIN!
You can’t be third time unlucky in a quick succession, unless the system you have created is creaky. Facebook is facing this plight, from being the prima donna of social media world, today it’s very technical capability of handling data of 2 billion users is in question. Trust is the key to the enterprise’s functioning, more so a digital one. Once the faith erodes, the downslide can be pretty fast. Cambridge Analytica fiasco besides the political and moral implications displayed how easy it was to manipulate the Facebook ecosystem. More so the digital controls to detect and inclination were both missing. Though there was global hue & cry, it was thought to be an one off incident.
Mark Zuckerberg though not sounding very convincing, explained his case before the US Congressional Committee and also the European Union hearing in the backdrop of Cambridge Analytica fiasco. Though seemingly unconvinced, both bodies gave him the benefit of doubt. As they proverbially say in history that it was the beginning of the end. In September, Facebook’s 30 million accounts were hacked to obtain private details, through a flaw in the “View As,” feature. The tokens thus stolen could be used as access key across the Facebook ecosystem. Yesterday was another bombshell.
Private messages from 81,000 hacked Facebook account were for sale. The information was obtained through malicious browser extensions. It is very difficult to make out as this happened with all controls in place or the earlier casual approach is on. As long as commercial considerations are taken care, there is nothing to bother. The ROI for not maintaining Cyber Security can only be decimation at the end of the day. The information was being sold at the rate of 10 cents per account. The profiles posted contained private messages.
This came to light in September and it supposed to have a database of 120 million accounts. The post from a user nicknamed FBSaler appeared on a English language internet forum. It claims to sell personal information of Facebook users. For the Cambridge Analytica scandal Facebook has already been fined 500,000 pounds. The sordid saga continues!
LEGAL MANDATE FOR INDIVIDUAL FINANCIAL COMPENSATION & CRIMINAL PROSECUTION MAY STEM THE TIDE.
Sanjay Sahay