Facebook Employees Hacked Users For Blackmailing

Opportunity makes thieves: It seems not uncommon for employees to hijack the accounts of Facebook and Instagram users at Meta. Around two dozen cases became known in the last year alone and management had to take action.

Several workers have been fired for such cases, with some receiving different sentences, the Wall Street Journal reports. And it wasn’t just about curiosity or similar drives. In several cases, users are said to have been blackmailed: if they wanted their account back, they were asked to pay thousands of dollars. However, it also happened that employees allowed themselves to be bribed by third parties with similar sums in order to then grant them access to accounts of their choice.

According to the sources, the perpetrators included not only Meta employees, but also the security staff at the Meta locations commissioned by the external service provider Allied Universal. An internal tool called “Oops”, which can be used to restore account access in the event of various problems, played a central role in this.

Meta’s Reputation At Stake

The tool is actually only intended for rare cases, e.g. B. Public figures and their family members. The prerequisite for use is the answering of questions about the source of the request. According to the newspaper, however, use has increased significantly in recent years: from 22,000 “tasks” in 2017 to 50,270 in 2020.

The number of black sheep among employees who have now been made redundant is small compared to the total number of employees. However, they could cause problems for the reputation of the social networking giant. After all, it’s not about a few cases in which an employee with little stable character allowed himself to be carried away, but about clearly criminal acts.