Facebook warns 1 million users login information compromised

Bloomberg

Meta Platforms Inc. said it would notify roughly 1 million Facebook users that their account credentials may have been compromised due to security issues with apps downloaded from Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s software stores.
The company announced that it identified more than 400 malicious Android and iOS apps this year that target internet users in order to steal their login information. Meta said it informed both Apple and Google about the issue in order to facilitate removal of the apps.
The apps worked by disguising themselves as photo editors, mobile games or health trackers, Facebook said.
Apple said 45 of the 400 problematic apps were on its App Store and have been removed. Google removed all the malicious apps in question, a spokesperson said.
“Cybercriminals know how popular these types of apps are, and they’ll use similar themes to trick people and steal their accounts and information,” said David Agranovich, director of global threat disruption at Meta. “If an app is promising something too good to be true, like unreleased features for another platform or social media site, chances are that it has ulterior motives.”
A typical scam would unfold, for example, after a user downloaded one of the malicious apps. The app would require a Facebook login to work beyond basic functionality, thus tricking the user into providing their username and password. Users could then, for example, upload an edited photo to their Facebook account. But in the process, they unknowingly compromised their account by giving the author of the app access.
Meta said it would be sharing tips with potential victims on how they can avoid being “re-compromised” by learning how to better spot problematic apps that pilfer credentials, whether for Facebook or other accounts. The malicious activity occurred off Meta systems, Agranovich said, adding that not all 1 million people necessarily had their passwords compromised.

Facebook Asks Users for More Help Improving Its Algorithms
Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. will soon ask some users for more direct feedback on what they like to see in their feed — and what they don’t — as part of a broader effort to compete with TikTok and show people posts from users they don’t follow.
Users will soon see “show more” and “show less” buttons on posts that appear in their feed, giving them a more direct way to tell the company what they’re interested in. Facebook will use that feedback to temporarily alter the kinds of content people see as it works to improve “discovery” across the company’s apps and surface new posts and videos to people from others they don’t already follow.
Meta already personalises user feeds on Facebook and Instagram by using a number of signals, including Likes and follows, but the impact of the new “show more” and “show less” buttons is meant to be both direct and temporary. Using the buttons will likely impact the algorithm for 30 to 60 days, and help dictate the kind of accounts that show up in feeds, said Tom Alison, the head of Facebook’s core app.
Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has said that improving “discovery” is a key focus for Meta. It’s considered a key strength of TikTok’s, and Meta has spent a lot of time and resources trying to build a competing short-form video product called Reels.
The “show more” and “show less” options will only appear on some posts, but they will also work on ads, Alison said. “It’s not designed” for ads, he admitted, “but you can apply these controls to ads.”
“This is all about delivering a relevant experience,” he added.