META News / Mark Zuckerberg gets a big blow, European Commission imposes a huge fine on him

Mark Zuckerberg's company Meta has been fined $101.6 million by the European privacy regulator over Facebook users' password security lapses. The investigation began in 2019 when Meta reported that some users' passwords were stored internally.

Vikrant Shekhawat : Sep 28, 2024, 06:00 AM

META News: Mark Zuckerberg, one of the richest people in the world, has recently suffered a major setback on his giant tech company Meta. The European Commission's privacy regulator has fined Meta $101.6 million for a security lapse involving Facebook users' passwords. The fine has been imposed by the Irish Data Protection Commission, which has set the amount at 91 million euros.

Investigation of security lapse started

The matter began in 2019, when the European Commission regulator began an investigation after Meta received information that some Facebook users' passwords were inadvertently stored internally. This was worrying, as this allowed Facebook employees to easily access these passwords.

Meta's response

Commission Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle said that users' passwords should not be stored without any code, given the risk of this type of misuse. Meta said in its clarification that this 'mistake' was identified in the security review and the company took immediate action to rectify it.

No evidence of misuse

Meta clarified in its statement that "there is no evidence that these passwords were misused or accessed inappropriately." He also said that he would engage meaningfully with the Irish Data Protection Commission during the investigation of this matter.

Fines have been imposed earlier too

This is not the first time that such a fine has been imposed on Mark Zuckerberg's company. Earlier, Instagram was fined 405 million euros for mismanaging the data of teenagers, WhatsApp was fined 5.5 million euros and Meta was fined 1.2 billion euros for sending data transatlantic.

Conclusion

This new fine has once again raised questions on Meta's security policies and management. This is a serious indication for Mark Zuckerberg that he needs to further strengthen the privacy and security measures of his company. Apart from this, this incident shows how strict action is being taken at the international level on violation of data protection rules. Meta now needs to take this issue seriously and focus on further strategies.