Facebook Reassures Users, But Hole May Put Mobile Data At Risk

snoopy · Apr 10, 2012

Facebook Reassures Users, But Hole May Put Mobile Data at Risk

UPDATED: Facebook Security assured users on Thursday who access their Facebook account via Android or iOS devices that mobile sessions on the social networking site aren’t vulnerable to hacking. However, research published this week suggests otherwise.

A blog entry posted by UK-based mobile application developer Gareth Wright suggests that users who have their mobile phones compromised may be subject to account takeover attacks.

Writing on Tuesday, Wright identified an alleged problem in the social network’s plain text access token, ‘com.Facebook.plist.’ Wright was able to take the unencrypted token, available in the application’s directory, and copy it to a friend’s device. After his friend removed his own token, he was able to see all of Wright’s personal Facebook posts, messages and likes on his own phone without even logging in.

The hole raises concern for anyone who may plug their phone into public computers or modified public charging stations, putting their .plist files in danger of being swiped by malware residing on those machines, Wright said.

Attack scenarios include a hidden application which runs in the background on shared PCs and copies Plists from machines that are attached to it. Alternatively, attackers could devise a tool for copying plists from mobile devices that they had physical access to.
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Story - http://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/facebook-reassures-users-hole-may-put-mobile-users-information-risk-040612

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Facebook Reassures Users, But Hole May Put Mobile Data At Risk

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