DigitalBeat

A couple of self-proclaimed “fans” of Facebook say they were able to gain access to the private information of Facebook users, including Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg.

The site FBHive said today that it found a security loophole in Facebook that allows anyone to view the social network’s private data about users. The data in private profiles is accessible even if that information has been hidden via privacy settings. Facebook said it has verified the loophole and shut it off. The company said it does not believe that anyone exploited the loophole.

At first, the FBHive web page displayed the personal information of Facebook’s chief. Then the site replaced the information with “Removed at Facebook’s Request.” The site did the same with the personal data of Digg co-founder Kevin Rose and Boing Boing co-editor Cory Doctorow.

TechCrunch writer Robin Wauters challenged the “two twenty-something guys” running the site to tell her secret information about herself. They promptly responded with her birth date, name of her hometown, name of her fiance and other data. She wrote that only her friends and family have access to that information and that her Facebook page is not generally available to the public.

FBHive said that a similar hack was reported on by the tech news site The Register in 2007. John Harrison, a group product manager at Symantec Security Response, said that the exploit could have been very damaging if it had been exposed widely. He said it is yet another reminder that people should limit the amount of personal information they share with others on social networks, or any network, for that matter.

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Tags: co: facebook, co: fbhive