FaceBook is investing more in Automation and cutting costs on Cybersecurity. Read on to know more about it…
According to a new report, current and former FaceBook employees who are responsible for heading off cyber attacks say the Silicon Valley giant is replacing them with machines. The employees in FaceBook Inc. responsible for tackling hacking threats have alleged that the company is replacing them with machines and is automating its alert response and security teams. FaceBook has reportedly shaken up its cybersecurity team as it invests in automation to identify and address cyber breaches on its various platforms, resulting in the displacement of more than 24 people to date. According to a report in The New York Times citing current and former FaceBook employees, the social networking giant “has dissolved and dispersed its security group over the last two years” at its offices in London, Seattle and Menlo Park in California.
Top FaceBook integrity and cybersecurity executives took to Twitter late Tuesday over the report. “The changes in this report have absolutely nothing to do with the teams fighting foreign meddling. Our security team has continued to grow substantially over the last two years – as automated detection increases, we shift experts to where they can have the most impact,’ tweeted Guy Rosen, VP Integrity at FaceBook.
Nathaniel Gleicher who heads cybersecurity policy at FaceBook, joined Rosen. “The shift here is exactly what a security organization should be doing. Focus experts where we need human expertise, and continuously improve automated detection at scale so people can focus where they make the most difference,” he tweeted.
Restructuring
FaceBook is reportedly automating its alert response and security teams. “To stay ahead of evolving security threats, we’re investing more in automated detection and bringing in new skills as we continue to grow our security team over all,” FaceBook spokeswoman said in a statement to the Times. “This also means we are restructuring a portion of our team and helping the people affected by this change find other roles at Facebook.”
FaceBook is hiring software engineers to build systems to replace people who previously carried out security duties, the employees told the Times. Training Artificial Intelligence means less reliance on people and a greater ability to scale up on detection over time, according to experts.
Large organizations are relying more on algorithms for content moderation as employees stay at home amid a pandemic that has killed more than 150,000 people worldwide. Automation has become a theme in recent years. Former Vice President Joe Biden, for instance, suggested at a New Hampshire rally in 2019 that coal miners by technology should learn to code.
After Effects
After the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Mark Zuckerberg said FaceBook would double its security staff by adding contractors, especially security engineers, from 10,000 to 20,000 employees. Zuckerberg has been reiterating to make FaceBook more “privacy-focuseda with renewed emphasis on encryption and security he was hauled in front of the US Senate in 2018 over the Cambridge Analytica scandal in which the information of 87 million users was “improperly shared” to profile voters.
Amid the growing fake news and misinformation era, FaceBook has also launched a bug bounty programme that rewards cybersecurity experts for finding and reporting third-party apps that are accessing FaceBook user data inappropriately.
