Facebook patched a overlooked security vulnerability today that allowed attackers to find out the picture, first and last name of Facebook users. All they would have to do was provide an e-mail address.  If anyone wished to know who an anonymous e-mail was from, all they would have to do would be to exploit this bug in Facebook.

Over 500 million users use Facebook every day. So if you use your e-mail anonymously and you also use that in Facebook, your privacy may have been in jeopardy! Who knows has already exploited this security hole before it was patched today?

According to Atul Agarwal from Secfence Technologies, Facebook users are exposed to this security risk even if they setup their privacy settings properly. The data on many of its more than 500 million users could have been extracted with the use of server proxies.

If you would like to try it and check if this bug still affects your account, try logging in using your e-mail address and a random password. Whatever information appears on screen, whether it is your name, picture, or location, this information will be open to stalkers, companies, marketers, and also maybe to persons you sent anonymous e-mails to. Aren’t you glad they patched this bug so fast after learning of it? Agarwal even demonstrated how easy this attack could be done with his PHP script that processed large lists of e-mail addresses.

Facebook has been criticized for making available to the public a lot of private information from its users whether it may be birthdays, location information, and that person’s friends and acquaintances. A lot of this information could be exploited by people seeking to intrude on the privacy of others. Facebook since has added more features for their users with regards to their privacy. Users now have better control over what information they share this social-networking site. One has to wonder how many users actually have used these new features. Why not update your Facebook page just to make sure your account is secure?

Users should be more careful about what they post on their Facebook accounts. They could use an alias or change the e-mail address they use for their Facebook accounts. Some users even expressed their interest in totally deleting their Facebook accounts. Whatever works best for the end-users, each one of us should take more care with the information we post or put on social-networking sites.

SecPoint offers high quality Products, up-to-date News, and comprehensive Resources.