Facebook hack shows vulnerability of large systems, professor says

Add this to the woes plaguing Facebook: the social media giant has been hacked.

On Friday (September 28), Facebook announced the discovery of a breach that may have compromised the accounts of close to 50 million users. The  attackers took advantage of a coding vulnerability involving the View As feature, which lets users see how their profile looks to other users.

Facebook says it doesn't yet know if data was actually stolen, or what the hackers did with the compromised accounts. The breach, however, could have given them full access to those accounts, a report in PC world explained.

Was Facebook bound to suffer a breach sooner or later? Cybersecurity pros say yes.

Rick Hansen, a professor at Capitol Technology University, says a platform as sprawling as Facebook will almost certainly be prone to coding quirks that a hacker can potentially discover and exploit.

"As systems get larger and more complex, not only do you get security vulnerabilities, but the different vulnerabilities can reinforce each other," Hansen said. "For every 100 lines of code you write, you'll probably have at least one flaw that could be exploited by an attacker."

"It gets very difficult for a large system like Facebook to design something perfectly. They're very good at patching the problems after they find them," Hansen said.

What steps should Facebook users take while the extent of damage is being investigated? According to PC World, a password change should definitely be top of the list. That way any access the hackers may have obtained will be blocked.

Hansen also recommends limiting the amount of personal information you share on social media platforms. "That includes birthdays -- you don't have to tell Facebook what day you were actually born. I don't."

"It makes for strange birthday greetings at odd times of the year, but that's ok," Hansen said.