Facebook to roll out fix for bug in two-factor authentication

After several people received non-security-related notifications from Facebook after giving the social network their phone numbers for two-factor authentication (2FA), the company admitted there was a bug and has promised to roll out a fix soon.

People who responded to these notifications saw them appearing as status updates on their Facebook accounts for all to see.

"It was not our intention to send non-security-related SMS notifications to these phone numbers, and I am sorry for any inconvenience these messages might have caused," Alex Stamos, Facebook Chief Security Officer, said in a post late on Friday.

People asked Facebook why their responses to these notifications appeared as status updates on the social media platform.

"For years, before the ubiquity of smartphones, we supported posting to Facebook via text message, but this feature is less useful these days. As a result, we are working to deprecate this functionality soon," Stamos added.

Facebook has promised to roll out a fix soon that will stop non-security-related notifications.

"We are working to ensure that people who sign up for two-factor authentication won't receive non-security-related notifications from us unless they specifically choose to receive them. We expect to have the fixes in place in the coming days," the Facebook executive said.

"To reiterate, this was not an intentional decision; this was a bug," he added.

According to Engadget, until Facebook rolls out a fix, those affected by the bug can go to Settings and then to Notifications to switch off text notifications.

--IANS

na/sac