The case that the information of 533 million Facebook accounts has just been released by hackers has brought the issue of user privacy back into focus.
The case that the information of 533 million Facebook accounts has just been released by hackers has made the issue of user privacy once again the focus of all attention. Agreeing on the fee of 5 million dong to regain the account after clicking on a strange link sent by a friend thanks to a vote on Facebook, Ms. LA, the owner of a famous beauty spa in Hanoi, spent 2 more days considering the proposal. about identity verification. Due to the characteristics of her job and the desire to create credibility with her partner, Ms. LA accepts to spend an additional 50 million to ask an intermediary to register for a green certificate. People who need to authenticate their Facebook accounts and other social networks like LA are not rare, especially business people, or celebrities. They are willing to spend a small amount of money to assert something that is their own property. While some platforms allow for free and simple identity verification, with Facebook it is both a difficult challenge and an intermediary fee is an option that is almost mandatory. That seemingly absurd thing is still happening every day, every hour, but no one is sure whether those verified accounts are guaranteed forever or not, because of the status of blue-tick accounts being occupied. becoming an online sales channel in recent times is easy to find. Especially when information about the data of 533 million Facebook users has just been released, many people cannot help but worry. The above data source is being sold by hackers on a hacker forum last week, including information such as phone number, login ID, full name, home address, date of birth, profile and email address … Which involves users in 106 countries, with 32 million Americans, 11 million British and 6 million Indians. In this regard, Facebook said the stolen data did not include users’ financial, health and password information. However, these data can provide valuable information for hackers and other breaches. More importantly, this is not the first time Facebook’s user data has been exposed on a large scale. Facebook user data is regularly leaked The 2015 cult case involving the British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica illegally used the personal data of more than 87 million Facebook users to target political ads. This is a scandal that caused Facebook to accept a settlement of up to $ 5 billion, and also caused founder Mark Zuckerberg to testify before the US Congress. Then in September 2019, a database of more than 400 million phone numbers related to Facebook accounts was released, including about 50 million Vietnamese users. Just 3 months later, the information of 267 million users including login IDs, names and phone numbers continued to fall into the hands of hackers. At the same time, the data leak in Belgium and Luxembourg, including that of European Justice Didier Reynders, many EU cabinet members and diplomats, has caused Facebook to suffer for a while. long time. However, Facebook explained that these data leaks were not caused by hackers breaking into the system, but rather by a vulnerability in the sync communication tool that was exploited by vandals in 2019. Facebook later The company has discovered the vulnerability and fixed it, and confirmed that similar incidents will not happen again in the future. Meanwhile, Mike Clark, Facebook’s director of product management, is constantly moving to try to downplay the impact of this large-scale leak. 
By March 2021, netizens were again shocked by the information that the data of 41 million Facebook users in Vietnam was distributed by hackers. Talking to a VietNamNet reporter at the time, a Facebook representative acknowledged that the leaked data was from users of this social network, but said “this may be information obtained before we (Facebook – PV) made changes over the past few years to protect users’ information. However, whether Facebook really protects users’ information according to what the head of this platform often says, that is another story. Judging by the recent situation, it seems that the problem of leaking Facebook user information is difficult to completely solve and needs to be looked at in detail. The spread of user information may first be because Facebook did not pay attention to this aspect, nor did it establish a complete and strict system to protect user information. At the same time, after a data breach, Facebook did not thoroughly summarize the problem, how to fix loopholes and prevent new problems from appearing. Not only that, a Facebook spokesperson said it is not clear which users should be notified in the recent incident. Because users cannot patch the vulnerabilities themselves and their personal data has been spread on the Internet, Facebook will not specifically notify the users involved. As a result, Facebook’s performance in this area is relatively poor, and user data leaks are frequent. After all, compared to other social software, users’ dependence on Facebook is still very high. If it leaks many times, I am afraid that it will easily cause irreparable losses and bad consequences. Legal privacy of Facebook users With the data of 87 million users exposed in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the 10 countries with the most Facebook accounts being collected are the US, Philippines, Indonesia, UK, Mexico, Canada, India, Brazil, Vietnam and Australia. Vietnam has 427,446 user accounts whose data has been collected. CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted that Facebook made mistakes and that his company failed to protect customer data, losing users’ trust. “We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t do that, we don’t deserve to serve you,” Zuckerberg wrote in a post on his personal Facebook page after the scandal. In addition to the $5 billion settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) at the time, the two sides reached a landmark settlement against allegations of misuse of user data. . According to the settlement reached by the FTC, when more than 500 user information is illegally stolen, Facebook is required to report it within 30 days. In connection with this case, Facebook also had to pay £500,000 (about $ 649,000) after a fine from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). By October last year, a user group called Facebook You Owe Us in the United Kingdom, led by the law firm Milberg London and supported by former CEO Richard Lloyd, continued to sue Facebook and seek compensation. another large sum. Meanwhile, most of Facebook’s data disclosure scandals have a direct impact on users of this social network in Vietnam. No one has been able to determine how many of the 427,446 Vietnamese user accounts in the Cambridge Analytica incident, or the 41 million accounts in the newly announced case in March 2021, were affected, even appropriated and had to be stolen. spend a small amount of money to get your account back like LA One thing is for sure, users are solely responsible for the security of personal account information in accordance with the general provisions of most platforms, including Facebook. However, if personal information on platforms like Facebook is leaked without subjective reasons from the user, on the contrary due to a security incident from the platform, who will be responsible for this? Since Facebook is obligated to compensate users in the US or EU affected by security incidents on the platform, why are 69,280,000 users using this social network in Vietnam, accounting for 70 .1% of the entire population (statistics as of June 2020), of which many are victims of Facebook incidents, are automatically responsible? This question, the writer would like to leave the answer open, because currently Vietnam does not have specific regulations and sanctions that apply specifically to social networking platforms, or the object of application in this case is outside of Vietnam. the scope of control under applicable law due to not having a home office. However, it is a problem that needs to be solved in the near future…
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