YouTube videos teaching criminals how to hack your Facebook account

HACKING tutorials which show how to break into Facebook are freely available online, as the website reels from an attack which hit 50m accounts.

Videos recommending ways to get inside users’ accounts can be found on YouTube within seconds.

The revelation comes as Facebook faces what could be the biggest class action lawsuit in history over the hack – and as furious MPs demand founder Mark Zuckerberg (pictured) is held to account for what happened. Many of the YouTube tutorials have been viewed thousands of times. They claim to reveal how a criminal can access a user’s profile by stealing their ‘access token’, a special code which allows someone to get onto the website without repeatedly entering their password.

It suggests the hackers who carried out the assault could have drawn on a vast public database of knowledge about Facebook’s vulnerabilities to hone their skills. The criminals, whose identities are still unknown, were able to exploit bugs in Facebook which could give them control of 50m profiles. This would allow the hackers to see intimate details of users’ private lives. Any bank details shared in messages would also have been exposed.

Facebook faces a growing backlash over the cyberattack, which is one of the largest ever recorded and is thought to have included many thousands of Britons among its victims.

In the UK, MPs have said they will use the law to force Zuckerberg to appear before Parliament. Tory MP Damian Collins, chairman of the digital, culture, media and sport committee, said: ‘If he ever enters the UK we will issue a summons for him to appear.’

US lawyers have already signed up claimants to begin a class action lawsuit over Facebook’s hack, and it is thought that British users who were hit could also begin legal action.

HACKERS RAID 50M FACEBOOK ACCOUNTS From the Mail, Sept 29