Passwords warning as train firm accounts are hacked
FACEBOOK FOUNDER Mark Zuckerberg has admitted that his personal data was handed over to election consultants Cambridge Analytica, the British firm accused of helping politicians use Facebook data to manipulate users’ voting intentions around the world.
He made his admission during a second day of being questioned by US lawmakers.
Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, reading questions from her constituents at a hearing of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, asked Mr Zuckerberg whether his data was “included in the data sold to the malicious third parties”.
With a slight hesitation, Mr Zuckerberg, the 33-year-old founder and CEO of Facebook, replied: “Yes.”
The head of the social media giant at the centre of overlapping scandals relating to how private information from its users is shared, is in Washington to face questioning from politicians.
On Tuesday Facebook began notifying more than 87m people around the world, including one million Britons, that their private information may have been given to Cambridge Analytica by an app developer from Cambridge University.
Representatives grilled Mr Zuckerberg on a wide range of issues around privacy, surveillance, censorship and politics, regularly asking for yes or no answers which the Facebook founder struggled to provide.
Representative Eshoo called Facebook’s terms and conditions around privacy a “minefield” and repeatedly asked Mr Zuckerberg whether he was “aware of other data mishandlings which have not been disclosed”. In response, he initially said no, but reiterated Facebook’s new investigation into third-party apps on the platform was attempting to discover if there had been any other cases of misuse.
On the topic of Russia allegedly using armies of online posters to meddle in the 2016 US election, Mr Zuckerberg admitted it would be difficult to completely eradicate such behaviour for “as long as Russia employs people for the activity”.
“It’s an arms race and I think we’re making ground,” he said.
Politicians in the US and UK are weighing up the possibility of legislation to regulate large technology companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter which are accused of failing to regulate themselves.
In his opening statement committee chair Greg Walden quoted the company’s early motto to “move fast and break things”, asking whether the company had “moved too fast and broken too many things”. Mr Zuckerberg said he believes regulation of his industry is “inevitable”.
Meanwhile, the British Government has warned Facebook that ministers are prepared to bring in tough new regulations unless it brings in reforms in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
At talks with senior Facebook executives in London, Culture Secretary Matt Hancock made clear its current data practices needed wholesale changes. A TRAIN company has urged online customers to reset their passwords after confirming it was the target of a cyber attack.
Great Western Railway (GWR) said hackers had used an automated system to try and gain access to customer accounts on its website.
GWR said about 1,000 accounts had been accessed, and that it is now notifying customers of the incident. It added that no financial information had been compromised.
“We have identified unauthorised automated attempts to access a small number of GWR.com accounts over the past week,” a Great Western Railway spokesman said.
“While we were able to shut this activity down quickly and contact those affected, a small proportion of accounts were successfully accessed.
“Our security systems mean that financial information is encrypted to the high standards customers would expect, and no unencrypted bank card information is stored in GWR.com accounts.
“We are contacting other GWR. com account holders to let them know what’s happened and encourage them to check, and change their passwords.”
The firm said it believed the information used for the automated attack is likely to have come from details mined in other cyber attacks, and urged its customers to improve their password security.
“This kind of attack uses account details harvested from other areas of the web to try and catch out consumers with poor password habits,” the company said.
“Sadly, it is the kind of attack that is experienced on a daily basis by businesses across the globe, and is a reminder of the importance of good password practice.
“We have acted quickly and decisively with our partners to protect our customers’ data, and have taken clear steps to stop it happening again.”
Cyber security expert Rashmi Knowles from RSA Security praised GWR’s response, adding that consumers should use the incident as an incentive to improve their own online security.