Facebook forced a reset of more than 50 million user accounts on Thursday and would force another 40 million account resets in the coming days, citing a major breach of the site’s security that allowed unknown attackers to take over people’s accounts.
AggregateIQ, one of the companies at the heart of the Facebook unauthorized data-sharing scandal, could be one of the first companies to face penalties under the European Union’s recently implemented General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Facebook and Twitter executives defended recent efforts to stop the use of their platforms by Russia, Iran and other countries to influence U.S. elections.
In this week’s podcast: a report out last week from The Institute for the Future makes clear that state sponsored trolling has gone global and is now a go-to tool for repressive regimes worldwide, constituting a new form of human rights abuse. Ben Nimmo of The Atlantic Council joins us to discuss. Also: ransomware is one of the most effective forms of online crime. Despite that, many organizations have no formal plan for responding to a ransomware attack: we talk with Thomas Hofmann of the firm Flashpoint*, which has launched a new service to help firms prepare for and respond to ransomware.
Facebook has denied allegations by a by a U.K. news outlet that it gave preferential treatment to some pages that promote hate speech because of financial interest, saying that creating a safe environment for its users remains a top priority.
