Facebook is one of the largest and most popular social media platforms in the world, with over 2.9 billion monthly active users as of the fourth quarter of 2022. However, despite its immense size and resources, Facebook has suffered numerous high-profile security breaches and hacks over the years.
The Scale and Complexity of Facebook’s Platform
One of the main reasons why Facebook gets hacked frequently is due to the sheer scale and complexity of its platform. Facebook is not just a simple website – it is an enormous global technology company with many different products, services, APIs, servers, databases, codebases, and networks. Securing such a vast digital estate is an incredibly challenging task.
Some key statistics that demonstrate the scale of Facebook’s platform:
- Over 2.9 billion monthly active Facebook users worldwide (as of Q4 2022)
- Over 3.65 billion monthly active people using Facebook services (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger) worldwide (as of Q4 2022)
- Millions of servers across data centers around the world
- Hundreds of thousands of lines of code
- Hundreds of thousands of third-party apps integrated with Facebook Login
- Billions of pieces of content (text, photos, videos, links) shared daily
With so many moving parts and attack surfaces, it only takes one small vulnerability or misconfiguration for hackers to gain entry and leverage access across Facebook’s infrastructure.
Highly Valuable Data
Facebook possesses data that is incredibly valuable to cybercriminals. The personal information of billions of users is like gold for hackers. Here’s some of the data that hackers target:
- Names, emails, phone numbers, physical addresses, dates of birth
- Private messages and conversations
- Friends and connections
- Interests, hobbies, preferences
- Photos and videos
- Login credentials
- Payment card information (for some users)
This wealth of personal data can be exploited in many malicious ways, such as identity theft, stalking, blackmail, and targeted scams. Hackers are highly motivated to steal Facebook user data.
Large Attack Surface
Facebook has a very large digital attack surface that is difficult to secure completely. Some major vectors hackers exploit:
- Web application vulnerabilities – Facebook’s website and backend apps have had vulnerabilities like XSS, CSRF, and injection flaws.
- Third-party app vulnerabilities – Hackers target vulnerabilities in Facebook APIs, SDKs, OAuth, and third-party apps that integrate with Facebook.
- Insufficient employee security – Facebook employees have been breached before, giving hackers internal access.
- Network vulnerabilities – Facebook’s corporate network, cloud infrastructure, servers, CDNs, etc. have vulnerabilities.
- Supply chain attacks – Targeting Facebook suppliers, vendors, and partners as a vector into Facebook’s network.
With so many different ways to breach Facebook’s defenses, it’s an ongoing challenge for their security team to plug all the holes.
| Year | Type of Breach | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Web application vulnerabilities | Private photos of up to 6.8 million users exposed |
| 2018 | Network vulnerability | Access tokens for 50 million accounts compromised |
| 2013-2014 | Insufficient employee security | Private information like phone numbers exposed for up to 87 million users |
High Public Visibility
As one of the world’s most popular online platforms, Facebook naturally attracts a lot of attention from cybercriminals seeking fame, notoriety, and publicity. Hacks on Facebook often make major headlines across global media. All this attention motivates more hackers and security researchers to probe Facebook’s systems for flaws and vulnerabilities.
This means Facebook has to contend not just with regular cybercriminals seeking financial gain, but also skilled hackers who want to break into Facebook for reputation and status in the hacker community. The high public visibility and scrutiny on Facebook raises the incentives for hackers even further.
Monetization Incentives
Facebook has enormous monetization potential through ads, e-commerce, payments, and more. This provides strong financial incentives for hackers to steal Facebook account credentials, run scams on Facebook, distribute malware on Facebook, and siphon off payment information.
Major ways hackers monetize breaches of Facebook:
- Selling Facebook account credentials on the dark web
- Using stolen Facebook accounts for other breaches, scams, and fraud
- Spreading malware and hijacking devices
- Running ads and generating fraudulent revenue
- Stealing payment card details for users who store that information
- Blackmail and extortion using private user data
As long as Facebook continues growing and monetizing its platform, hackers will find compelling financial motivations to try and exploit the company’s vulnerabilities.
Conclusion
In summary, Facebook is an enormous target for hackers worldwide due to its massive user base, trove of valuable personal data, expansive digital footprint, high public visibility, and strong monetization opportunities. While Facebook pours billions of dollars into security every year, the incentives and rewards for compromising Facebook’s systems are simply too high for many hackers and cybercriminals to resist. For all these reasons, despite Facebook’s best efforts, the platform remains vulnerable to intrusions, data breaches, and manipulation by bad actors.