• Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
MUST READ

Europol shuts down Archetyp Market, longest-running dark web drug marketplace

 | 

Kelly Benefits data breach has impacted 550,000 people, and the situation continues to worsen as the investigation progresses

 | 

Cisco removed the backdoor account from its Unified Communications Manager

 | 

U.S. Sanctions Russia's Aeza Group for aiding crooks with bulletproof hosting

 | 

Qantas confirms customer data breach amid Scattered Spider attacks

 | 

CVE-2025-6554 is the fourth Chrome zero-day patched by Google in 2025

 | 

U.S. CISA adds TeleMessage TM SGNL flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

 | 

A sophisticated cyberattack hit the International Criminal Court

 | 

Esse Health data breach impacted 263,000 individuals

 | 

Europol dismantles €460M crypto scam targeting 5,000 victims worldwide

 | 

CISA and U.S. Agencies warn of ongoing Iranian cyber threats to critical infrastructure

 | 

U.S. CISA adds Citrix NetScaler flaw to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

 | 

Canada bans Hikvision over national security concerns

 | 

Denmark moves to protect personal identity from deepfakes with new copyright law

 | 

Ahold Delhaize data breach affected over 2.2 Million individuals

 | 

Facebook wants access to your camera roll for AI photo edits

 | 

SECURITY AFFAIRS MALWARE NEWSLETTER ROUND 51

 | 

Security Affairs newsletter Round 530 by Pierluigi Paganini – INTERNATIONAL EDITION

 | 

The FBI warns that Scattered Spider is now targeting the airline sector

 | 

LapDogs: China-nexus hackers Hijack 1,000+ SOHO devices for espionage

 | 
  • Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
  • Home
  • Breaking News
  • Hacking
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Researchers found a zero-click Facebook account takeover

Researchers found a zero-click Facebook account takeover

Pierluigi Paganini February 29, 2024

A critical vulnerability in Facebook could have allowed threat actors to hijack any Facebook account, researcher warns.

Meta addressed a critical Facebook vulnerability that could have allowed attackers to take control of any account.

The Nepalese researcher Samip Aryal described the flaw as a rate-limiting issue in a specific endpoint of Facebook’s password reset flow. An attacker could have exploited the flaw to takeover any Facebook account by brute-forcing a particular type of nonce.

Meta awarded the researchers for reporting the security issue as part of Facebook’s bug bounty program.

The researchers discovered that the issue impacts Facebook’s password reset procedure when the user selects “Send Code via Facebook Notification.”

Analyzing the vulnerable endpoint the researcher discovered that three conditions opened the door for a brute-force attack:

  1. The nonce sent to the user is active for longer than I expected (≈ 2 hrs)
  2. The same nonce code was sent every time for the period.
  3. I didn’t see any sort of code invalidation after entering the correct code but with multiple previous invalid tries (unlike in the SMS reset functionality).

    Choosing the option “Send Code via Facebook Notification” will send a POST request to:

    POST /ajax/recover/initiate/ HTTP/1.1

    with the parameter; recover_method=send_push_to_session_login

    Then the researchers attempted to send a 6-digit code ‘000000’ to analyze the POST request sent to the vulnerable endpoint:

    POST /recover/code/rm=send_push_to_session_login&spc=0&fl=default_recover&wsr=0 HTTP/1.1

    where “n” parameter holds the nonce.

    Facebook

    At this stage, bruteforcing this 6-digit value had become a trivial task for the expert.

    “there was no rate limiting on this endpoint, thus the matching code was responded back with a 302 status code. Use this code to log in/reset the FB account password for the user account.” reads the analysis published by Aryal.

    Facebook

    The researcher noticed that upon exploiting this vulnerability, Facebook would notify the targeted user. The notification would either display the six-digit code directly or prompt the user to tap the notification to reveal the code.

    The researcher reported the flaw to Meta on January 30, 2024, and the company addressed the issue on February 2nd, 2024. This vulnerability had a huge impact, Meta recognized it as a zero-click account takeover exploit. Aryal is currently ranked in first place in Facebook’s Hall of Fame 2024.

    Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook

    Pierluigi Paganini

    (SecurityAffairs – hacking, Meta)


    facebook linkedin twitter

    Facebook Hacking hacking news information security news IT Information Security Meta Pierluigi Paganini Security Affairs Security News Social Network

    you might also like

    Pierluigi Paganini July 03, 2025
    Europol shuts down Archetyp Market, longest-running dark web drug marketplace
    Read more
    Pierluigi Paganini July 03, 2025
    Kelly Benefits data breach has impacted 550,000 people, and the situation continues to worsen as the investigation progresses
    Read more

    leave a comment

    newsletter

    Subscribe to my email list and stay
    up-to-date!

      recent articles

      Europol shuts down Archetyp Market, longest-running dark web drug marketplace

      Cyber Crime / July 03, 2025

      Kelly Benefits data breach has impacted 550,000 people, and the situation continues to worsen as the investigation progresses

      Uncategorized / July 03, 2025

      Cisco removed the backdoor account from its Unified Communications Manager

      Security / July 02, 2025

      U.S. Sanctions Russia's Aeza Group for aiding crooks with bulletproof hosting

      Cyber Crime / July 02, 2025

      Qantas confirms customer data breach amid Scattered Spider attacks

      Cyber Crime / July 02, 2025

      To contact me write an email to:

      Pierluigi Paganini :
      pierluigi.paganini@securityaffairs.co

      LEARN MORE

      QUICK LINKS

      • Home
      • Cyber Crime
      • Cyber warfare
      • APT
      • Data Breach
      • Deep Web
      • Digital ID
      • Hacking
      • Hacktivism
      • Intelligence
      • Internet of Things
      • Laws and regulations
      • Malware
      • Mobile
      • Reports
      • Security
      • Social Networks
      • Terrorism
      • ICS-SCADA
      • POLICIES
      • Contact me

      Copyright@securityaffairs 2024

      We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
      Cookie SettingsAccept All
      Manage consent

      Privacy Overview

      This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities...
      Necessary
      Always Enabled
      Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
      Non-necessary
      Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
      SAVE & ACCEPT