Meta Fires Employees Over Hijacked User Accounts, Report Says
Bribes are alleged in some cases, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Meta employees allegedly seized control of user accounts.
Facebook parent Meta fired and disciplined more than two dozen employees and contractors for allegedly taking over user accounts in the past year, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. In some cases, the Journal reported, the hijacking was allegedly undertaken for thousands of dollars in bribes from outside hackers.
Meta, which also owns social media site Instagram, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Journal reported that some of those fired were security contractors who were given access to internal employee tools, internally known as "Oops" (short for Online Operations). The tools allow employees to help users restore access to their accounts, either because the user forgot their password or whose account was hijacked by hackers, according to the report.
Though the system is intended for limited use, Oops usage has skyrocketed in recent years. In 2020 alone, the Oops channel serviced "about 50,270 tasks, up from 22,000 three years earlier," according to the Journal.
The recent disciplinary actions are allegedly part of a larger probe led by Meta executives into the abuse of the internal Oops system.