TechRadar readers of a certain vintage will probably quite fondly remember Myspace, one of the earlier social networks to monopolise our internet downtime with its friendship-breaking top pals lists and headache-inducing GIF walls. Then Facebook came along and ate its dinner.
If, for whatever reason, you've still got a dormant Myspace account, now may finally be the time to put it out to pasture. A serious security flaw may have left your account and details critically vulnerable.
Security researcher Leigh-Anne Galloway first spotted the flaw, posting to her blog how that, with no more than a user's full name, email address and date of birth (all quite readily available if you know where to look), a hacker could easily take control of a Myspace account.
Invading my space
The Myspace recovery page in question that allowed for the shambolic security breach has now been patched up, and has been changed to instead point to a standard log-in page.
But it's still probably best to now lay your Myspace account to rest. When its Justin Timberlake-led redesign of 2013 fell flat, its new look stripped the site of much of its user-generated content, such as photos, wall posts and blogs, leaving only the bare minimum of user info publically available. This may relieve some fears of anyone not paying attention to the changes to the service over the years, but any data here that overlaps with your current social media accounts could make them now vulnerable too.
The ease with which your page could have been hacked means that Myspace learnt little after its major hack of 2016, in which 360 million accounts were thought to be breached.
“It seems Myspace wants us all to take security into our own hands,” said Galloway.
“If there is a possibility that you still have account on Myspace, I recommend you delete your account immediately.”
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