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Yeah, OK. Someone will always find a way.
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Meta says it has resolved an issue that allowed hackers to trick its AI assistant into granting access to other users’ accounts, including high-profile individuals, according to multiple media reports.
404 Media and The Guardian say hackers used the tactic to target Barack Obama’s White House account, beauty retailer Sephora and the U.S. Space Force chief master sergeant, John Bentivegna.
Regular users also reported similar takeovers on X, even sharing screen-recorded videos of conversations with Meta’s AI chatbot detailing how the hacks were executed.
One video posted on X appears to show a hacker asking Meta’s AI assistant to link their account to a new email address, bypassing two-factor authentication.
The bot responds that a verification code has been sent to the new email address and asks the hacker to enter it in the chat. Once the hacker does so, an option appears allowing them to reset the hacked user’s password.
“This issue has been resolved and we are securing impacted accounts,” Meta said in a statement to Global News on Tuesday.
The breach comes as Meta undergoes an operational shift that will see human roles transferred to AI and an increase in the use of tech-forward features across its platforms, including customer support on Instagram and Facebook.
The company’s chatbot customer support feature, launched last year, will continue to be updated over time, according to a March update from the tech giant.
Meta said in the release that its AI chatbot is set up for users to report scams, impersonation accounts or problematic content and to manage privacy, reset passwords, and update profile settings.
Last year, Meta reported “positive results” from changes to the service, which it said reduced mistakes and focused on regulating illegal and severe content across all Meta platforms, including terrorism, child exploitation, drugs, fraud and scams.
The AI systems will “eventually be able to take on work that’s better suited to technology, like repetitive reviews of graphic content or areas where adversarial actors are constantly changing their tactics, such as with illicit drug sales or scams,” the March release noted, before adding that Meta will “still have people who review content.”
In January, hundreds of Meta staff were laid off in its Reality Labs division as the tech giant shifted its focus from metaverse products to AI. In late May, Reuters reported that CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a company-wide memo that the company was not planning any further layoffs for 2026.
He made the announcement on the same day the Facebook owner carried out a massive restructuring of the company, laying off 10 per cent of its workforce globally and transferring 7,000 other employees to new initiatives related to AI workflows.
— With files from Reuters
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