{"id":105456,"date":"2018-07-26T18:12:12","date_gmt":"2018-07-26T18:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sftarticles.wpenginepowered.com\/en\/?p=105456"},"modified":"2025-07-01T23:14:23","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T06:14:23","slug":"this-chrome-extension-was-spying-on-your-private-facebook-groups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/this-chrome-extension-was-spying-on-your-private-facebook-groups\/","title":{"rendered":"This Chrome extension was spying on your private Facebook groups"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Chrome extension called <\/span>Grouply.io <\/b>has been discovered allowing third parties to get data from private Facebook groups. <\/span><\/p>\n

The discoverer of this security breach was Andrea Downing, a moderator of a Facebook group that brings together women with BRCA, a gene associated with breast cancer. Downing explains that the theoretical privacy of a Facebook group <\/span>lets women share their problems, stories and build strong relationships.<\/b> For example, members posted images of their surgical procedures and experiences and advice about staying healthy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Downing started to worry whether the group was safe from prying eyes after recent Facebook scandals. She checked it out and discovered that this Chrome extension Grouply.io, <\/span>now defunct<\/b>, had allowed downloads of names, jobs, places, emails and other personal data from anybody in a private Facebook group. <\/span><\/p>\n

Downing contacted <\/span>an expert in health data monitoring,<\/b> Fred Trotter, to investigate the case. Trotter found out that closed (private) Facebook groups had a serious security breach. <\/span><\/p>\n

Downing <\/span>got in touch with Facebook<\/b>. But neither she nor Trotter have been satisfied with the social network\u2019s statements. <\/span><\/p>\n

The good news is that since June 29, <\/span>it\u2019s no longer possible to get data from private groups. <\/b>What a coincidence, just a month after Downing made her discovery and informed Facebook about it. <\/span><\/p>\n

The bad news is that before then, <\/span>there\u2019s a chance that third parties had access to our data <\/b>through private Facebook groups. In the case of this group of women, a health insurer could have used this extension to create their own database.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

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A Chrome extension called Grouply.io has been discovered allowing third parties to get data from private Facebook groups. The discoverer of this security breach was Andrea Downing, a moderator of a Facebook group that brings together women with BRCA, a gene associated with breast cancer. Downing explains that the theoretical privacy of a Facebook group … Continue reading “This Chrome extension was spying on your private Facebook groups”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2057,"featured_media":105736,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[1015],"tags":[2353],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-105456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-app-subdomain-redirectionfacebook"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2057"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105456"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":327616,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105456\/revisions\/327616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105456"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=105456"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=105456"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=105456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}