New York, May11, Hundreds of thousands of Facebook users account details could have been "inadvertently" leaked to third parties, in particular advertisers, over the years, according to data security solutions provider Symantec.
"Symantec has discovered that in certain cases, Facebook IFRAME applications inadvertently leaked access tokens to third parties like advertisers or analytic platforms," Symantec Corp said in its official blog.
Third parties, in particular advertisers, have accidentally had access to Facebook users' accounts, including profiles, photographs and chat, and also had the ability to post messages and mine personal information.
"We estimate that as of April, 2011, close to 100,000 applications were enabling this leakage. We estimate that over the years, hundreds of thousands of applications may have inadvertently leaked millions of 'access tokens' to third parties," the blog post added.
Access tokens are like 'spare keys' granted by a Facebook user to the Facebook application.
"Symantec has discovered that in certain cases, Facebook IFRAME applications inadvertently leaked access tokens to third parties like advertisers or analytic platforms," Symantec Corp said in its official blog.
Third parties, in particular advertisers, have accidentally had access to Facebook users' accounts, including profiles, photographs and chat, and also had the ability to post messages and mine personal information.
"We estimate that as of April, 2011, close to 100,000 applications were enabling this leakage. We estimate that over the years, hundreds of thousands of applications may have inadvertently leaked millions of 'access tokens' to third parties," the blog post added.
Access tokens are like 'spare keys' granted by a Facebook user to the Facebook application.
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