Security flaw lets hackers delete Facebook friends

The flaw was reported May 26 by a college student who has written proof-of-concept code that uses publicly available data from Facebook to systematically delete all of a user’s friends

International (The Register) May 21, 2010 -- The Facebook security gaffes keep coming, with the latest being a bug that allows hackers to delete all of a users’ site friends without permission, according to IDG News.

The flaw was reported May 26 by a college student, but some 48 hours later it could still be exploited to delete an IDG reporter’s Facebook friends. The student has written proof-of-concept code that uses publicly available data from Facebook to systematically delete all of a user’s friends. “A malicious hacker could combine an exploit for this bug with spam or even a self-copying worm code to wreak havoc on the social network,” IDG said.

The CSRF, or cross-site request forgery, bug that makes all this possible is the same one reported earlier last week that exposed user birthdays and other sensitive data even when they were designated as private. Facebook representatives had said company engineers had closed the hole, but that pronouncement was premature. The flaw could still be exploited to control the site’s “like” feature, a button users click to endorse ads and other types of content.

Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/21/facebook_bug/

Source: DHS Daily Open Source Infrastructure Report