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10-second hijack hole could kill any Facebook profile

Shame it wasn't used more before Zuck paid $16k to the uni student who found it

University student Arun S Kumar has scored US$16,000 (£12,312, A$21,200) for finding and reporting a Facebook vulnerability that led to account hijacking.

The flaw in Facebook's Business Manager reported through BugCrowd late last month and since patched was a form of direct object reference vulnerability which bypassed normal authorisation checks.

It allowed Kumar, an engineering student with the MES Institute of Technology and Management in Chathannoor, India, to manipulate any Facebook page using nothing more than two business accounts.

Kumar says the attack could take less than 10 seconds.

"[Attackers can] take over any Facebook page such as Bill Gates, Narendra Modi, [or] Barack Obama, and can perform critical actions like page deletion," Kumar says.

Facebook upped the payment made 16 September after it found a similar vulnerability Kumar had not reported. ®

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