FB drops flawed New Year app
1 Jan 2013 5:59 AM IST
Nearly a week after Facebook launched its New Year's messaging feature, the social networking site was on Monday forced to drop the app following a flaw that allowed anyone to see and even delete personal messages intended for others.
The popular website had last week launched its Midnight Message Delivery feature to allow users to send New Year's messages to friends that automatically arrive on the stroke of midnight on New Year. However, one student blogger noticed that a simple tweak of the URL at the top of the page allows users to access messages written by total strangers - and even delete them, the Daily Mail reported.
Jack Jenkins, a Aberystwyth University student, found the privacy flaw on Facebook's Midnight Message Delivery features on his blog early on Monday morning. ‘Facebook have not been very security conscious when setting this up,’ he wrote.
A Facebook spokeswoman confirmed that it is aware of the issue and working on a fix. ‘We are working on a fix for this issue now,’ she said.
The popular website had last week launched its Midnight Message Delivery feature to allow users to send New Year's messages to friends that automatically arrive on the stroke of midnight on New Year. However, one student blogger noticed that a simple tweak of the URL at the top of the page allows users to access messages written by total strangers - and even delete them, the Daily Mail reported.
Jack Jenkins, a Aberystwyth University student, found the privacy flaw on Facebook's Midnight Message Delivery features on his blog early on Monday morning. ‘Facebook have not been very security conscious when setting this up,’ he wrote.
A Facebook spokeswoman confirmed that it is aware of the issue and working on a fix. ‘We are working on a fix for this issue now,’ she said.
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