Rogue Facebook apps can now access your home address and mobile phone number

In a move that could herald a new level of danger for Facebook users, third party application developers are now able to access your home address and mobile phone number.

Facebook has announced that developers of Facebook apps can now gather the personal contact information from their users.

I realise that Facebook users will only have their personal information accessed if they “allow” the app to do so, but there are just too many attacks happening on a daily basis which trick users into doing precisely this.

Facebook is already plagued by rogue applications that post spam links to users’ walls, and point users to survey scams that earn them commission – and even sometimes trick users into handing over their cellphone numbers to sign them up for a premium rate service.

Now, shady app developers…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus industry having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, on Mastodon at @[email protected], or drop him an email.