Breaking Analysis:  What are the latest security leaks?
Channel: SiliconANGLE theCUBE
Date: 2012-10-11

A researcher by the name of Suriya Prakash is claiming the majority of phone numbers on Facebook are not safe. One day after the release of Firefox 16, Mozilla said it has "temporarily removed" the latest version of its browser because of a security flaw AND
A teenage hacker who goes by the name of "Pinkie Pie" will receive $60,000 in prize money from Google, for producing the first Chrome vulnerability.  Joining us now to discuss the state of security is SiliconANGLE Contributing Editor John Caseretto.

A researcher named Suriya Prakash is claiming the majority of phone numbers on Facebook are not safe and he provided a demonstration showing how he could collect phone numbers and their corresponding Facebook names with very little effort. Explain to us what Suriya was demonstrating which he believes was a violation of user privacy.

Why is this a security issue?

Suriya claims he was able to accomplish all of this information gathering without being blocked for a significant period of time because of a loophole in the facebook mobile app, can you explain that. 

Suriya contacted Facebook to address the security issue and received a reply from a Facebook Security spokesperson stating "When you hit a phone number all you can do via contact importer is request someone to be your facebook friend."  So if this is true what are the security implications here?

Suriya contacted Facebook several times about the issue to which Facebook finally replied with this statement: "Facebook has developed an extensive system for preventing the malicious usage of our search functionality and the scenario described by the researcher was indeed rate-limited and eventually blocked."  Do you believe Suriya is making something out of nothing or is Facebook turning a blind eye to a larger security issue here? 

Just a day after the Firefox 16 release Mozilla has removed the latest version citing a security flaw.  Such a quick removal suggests that this must be a serious issue, can you explain to us what Mozilla believes is the vulnerability?

Are there any reports of the security flaw being exploited so far?

What are Mozilla's plans to resolve the issue?  Is this a flaw in previous versions of Firefox as well?

A teenage hacker received a $60,000 prize from Google for exposing a Chrome vulnerability.  Why does Google offer up these types of competitions for hackers?

The largest cash prize was reserved for those who could find "full Chrome exploits." Can you explain what that means.

What vulnerability did the hacker expose?

What does Google do with the information they gather from these events?