Facebook hopes to restore faith by acquiring a major cybersecurity firm

Facebook has lost a lot of trust throughout 2018 after a number of security issues have come to light. The social network stated that it wouldn’t replace its security chief following the departure of Alex Stamos, but that hasn’t stopped the company throwing cash at major cybersecurity firms in order to win back favourability.

Back in 2014, Facebook began to bolster its security efforts with the purchase of PrivateCore. While this was intended to strengthen its servers against unofficial access, it didn’t help to mitigate the Cambridge Analytica debacle that exposed 87 million users’ data, or the more recent token theft that allowed unrestricted access to 30 million names, addresses, phone numbers and more.

In an effort to win back trust with its massive user base, Zuckerberg’s social network has approached numerous security firms to reinforce stronger security practices. According to The Information, Facebook is finally settling on a company, however talks are still under way. The four sources in contact couldn’t reveal the name of the company due to the tentative nature of negotiations, although they did reveal that the deal is expected to close by the end of the year.

Although Facebook’s long-term security plans are being kept under wraps, the sources suggest that the social network is likely looking into software “that it could wrap into its own systems, including things like analytics or tools to flag unauthorized access.” This is set to double security-based jobs from 10,000 to 20,000 this year alone, providing everything goes according to schedule.

KitGuru Says: It’s going to be a tough road ahead if Facebook has absolutely any chance at all in regaining the trust of its user base. Given all that’s happened over the past year, do you think it’s possible for people to regain faith in the social network?

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