{"id":88878,"date":"2018-05-17T12:49:05","date_gmt":"2018-05-17T19:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/securingtomorrow.mcafee.com\/?p=88878"},"modified":"2025-08-13T01:35:46","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T08:35:46","slug":"facebook-users-data-exposed-by-suspended-app","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/privacy-identity-protection\/facebook-users-data-exposed-by-suspended-app\/","title":{"rendered":"Sensitive Data on 3 Million Facebook Users Potentially Exposed by Suspended App"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Facebook to Twitter<\/a> and now back to Facebook \u2013 the past few months have seen some of the most popular social media platforms out there today struggling with securing consumer data. And just today, news broke<\/a> that a new data breach has potentially exposed<\/a> 3 million Facebook users\u2019 data via an app called myPersonality. This is all because a username and password granting access to the data were insufficiently secured.<\/p>\n

Any avid Facebook user knows that there are apps on the platform that act as fun little quizzes, games, or activities \u2014 myPersonality being one of them. myPersonality is a Facebook app\/questionnaire that asks people about highly personal matters, as it is actually a psychometric test created by the University of Cambridge. But once users fill out the test, their information does not remain personal, as this data has been shared with almost 150 institutions and companies, including researchers at universities and firms like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo<\/a>. What\u2019s more, the login information used by these companies for accessing this data was posted publicly to Github, making it available to the public for the past four years.<\/p>\n

Mind you, this data was scrubbed of users\u2019 names before being given to the researchers, and these collaborators had to vow they wouldn\u2019t de-anonymize the data before they obtained access to it. Regardless, Facebook has confirmed<\/a> that it has temporarily suspended myPersonality and is investigating the app. “If myPersonality refuses to cooperate or fails our audit, we will ban it,” said Ime Archibong, Facebook’s Vice President of Product Partnerships. This is following Facebook\u2019s statement earlier this week that it\u00a0has suspended<\/a> 200 apps and investigated thousands of others in case they misused people’s data.<\/p>\n

Tips to Secure Your Social Media<\/h2>\n

So, while Facebook investigates myPersonality, what can users of the social media network do in the interim to ensure they\u2019re secure? Start by following these tips:<\/p>\n