Facebook's Phone Number Policy Could Push Users to Not Trust Two-Factor Authentication

Users are angry that Facebook is letting others, including advertisers, look up users via the phone numbers they provided to enable two-factor authentication.

Using two-factor authentication, a security mechanism that requires a second step to login into an account other than the password, is widely considered an essential measure to protect yourself online. Yet, only a small percentage of people use this feature, mostly because it can be burdensome and it’s rarely required by default, leaving users with the responsibility to turn it on.

Now, Facebook may have given people yet another reason not to bother.

Last week, Emojipedia founder Jeremy Burge warned in a viral Twitter thread that anyone could look him up on Facebook using his phone number, which he provided to the social network in order to enable two-factor authentication.


https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/kzdxjx/facebook-phone-number-two-factor-authentication