On Friday Facebook disclosed a breach of its systems that put as many as 50 million users at risk.
While the breach was discovered early last week Facebook hasn’t disclosed what the extent of the damage is but took the precautionary measure of logging an additional 40 million users out of their accounts. In total 90 million users were logged out of their accounts to reset access tokens.
But now Facebook faces another challenge – General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).
Should Facebook have not done enough to safeguard user data from risk it could face a fine of €20 million or four percent of its global annual turnover, whichever is higher.
In this case the four percent is the higher figure amounting to $1.63 billion.
Of course, Facebook will only face a fine should it be found that it did not take precautions to safeguard user data before the hack took place.
That having been said this breach of Facebook’s systems could not have come at a worse time.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal is still fresh in user’s minds. Add to that the fact Facebook is losing money hand over fist as it tries to make users safer and you have the makings of a terrible year in Facebook’s history.
[Source – Gizmodo]
