Facebook code error allows user accidental control of 17 pages

Tom Krieglstein, founder of the technology training company Swift Kick, realised he had been granted administrative access to pages belonging to Microsoft, Southwest Airlines and American Airlines. The largest page, dedicated to sci-fi classic Star Wars, would allow him to send a message to around 825,000 fans.

Krieglstein believed that a glitch in the redesign of Facebook pages accidentally gave him control. To test his power he sent a link to the Star Wars group of a child playing the theme song on a harp. Within a few hours, around 450 people had clicked on the link.

He said that he could have removed other administrators from the pages, added content, or even deleted the pages altogether. He said: “I was just looking at my pages. I noticed that it was showing me other companies' as well.”

In response, Facebook said: “We investigated this report and found it to be an isolated incident. Administrator rights were erroneously restored in this case because the user was the original creator of the pages referenced. The error has been fixed, and we have received no other reports about this issue.” 

See original article on scmagazineuk.com