MySpace plugging photo peephole

Hours after being alerted to a new security hole that exposes members' private photos, the company says it is fixing it.

Elinor Mills Former Staff Writer

Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service and the Associated Press.

See full bio

Elinor Mills

Nov. 4, 2008 4:43 p.m. PT

MySpace was working to plug a hole on Tuesday that allows anyone to view members' private photos without being friends with them.

The vulnerability, reported to CNET News by Canadian computer technician Byron Ng, was easy to exploit by plugging a member's ID number into a specific MySpace URL. However, someone would have to know which URL to use to be able to see the private photos.

Hours after CNET News notified MySpace of the security hole midday and several hours later a MySpace representative said the company had confirmed the vulnerability, disabled it, and was rolling out a fix.

Rival social network Facebook fixed a similar privacy hole in September.