Tech companies continue to court controversy. On Monday, Facebook and Twitter announced that personal data of hundreds of its users may have been improperly exposed and accessed after they used their accounts to log into two apps downloaded from Google Play store.
The two apps in question are Giant Square and Photofy that are available on Google Play store. This is the latest in the series of personal data exposure scandals and comes at a time when an increasing number of tech companies are coming under regulatory scanner.
User data compromised once again
Facebook and Twitter said that they were intimated by security researchers that a software development kit, One Audience, exposed user data and allowed third-party developers to get access to personal information like user name, email address, recent tweets of hundreds of its users.
Twitter further said that it may also be likely that it allowed the third party to take control over the Twitter handle of another user. The company said that it has already informed and alerted these users and has also informed Google parent Alphabet and Apple about the vulnerability to avoid and stop further exposure of data of its millions of users.
Facebook in a statement said, "Security researchers recently notified us about two bad actors, One Audience and Mobiburn, who were paying developers to use malicious software developer kits (SDKs) in a number of apps available in popular app stores. After investigating, we removed the apps from our platform for violating our platform policies and issued cease and desist letters against One Audience and Mobiburn."
"We plan to notify people whose information we believe was likely shared after they had granted these apps permission to access their profile information like name, email and gender," the statement further read.
Tech companies continue to court controversies
Tech companies have been under pressure from regulators across the world. Federal regulators have been scrutinizing how Facebook, Google, Twitter, and others handle the personal information of consumers amid incidences of user data breach increasing every day.
Recent regulatory clampdown on some of the biggest tech companies has kept others under pressure, which has been taking a toll on their share prices.
Facebook certainly has been one of the most affected companies with pressure of regulatory scrutiny mounting on the company. In early 2018, Facebook got embroiled in a data breach scandal involving Cambridge Analytica that saw the personal information of 80 million users getting exposed.
