After 'Facebook reading your SMESes' insinuation, Kaspersky denies saying ... - Financial Express ~ Electronic Gadgets

Nandagopal Rajan | New Delhi | Updated: Feb 04 2014, 15:25 IST

Kaspersky PR send out the first mails on Monday

SummaryKaspersky Lab claims it is 'not the source of the news' that Facebook was reading your SMSes.

It seems the PR team of internet security giant Kaspersky Lab got more than what it bargained for. Nine hour after it sent out an email saying that �buried within the latest update for Facebook�s Android app is a feature that is causing growing concern among some users�, they were sending out clarification emails saying they were �not the source of the news� that Facebook was reading your SMSes and �have only commented on the technical aspect�.

We will leave that call to you.

This is what the first mail, received on Monday, said: �Buried within the latest update for Facebook�s Android app is a feature that is causing growing concern among some users. In the App permissions menu, the site asks for access to �Read your text messages (SMS and MMS)�, and to �Add or modify calendar events and send email to guests without owners� knowledge.�

According to Facebook�s official app permission page, an example of when Facebook requires access to text messages is when connecting phone numbers to an account. �If you add a phone number to your account,� explained Facebook, �This allows us to confirm your phone number automatically by finding the confirmation code that we send via text message.�

KasperSky

The mail goes on to say that �the key� seems to lie in the word �automatically��. �Surely the app doesn�t *need* to do this automatically. Facebook could simply prompt me to type in the code manually. Or, at the very least, provide this option. This may be a perfectly innocent feature. But in the light of growing concerns about online privacy, such an option would help to allay people�s fears.�

It quotes David Emm, Global Research & Analysis Team (GReAT), Principal Security Researcher, Kaspersky Lab as saying that it is good to see Facebook providing two-factor authentication.��It�s up to you, of course, to decide if you�re happy to allow Facebook to read your messages. As a final note, we�d urge people to carefully check the permissions requested by any app when you first install it.�

However, hours later, as the Internet was flooded with reports