Advertisers and marketers are largely unconcerned with Facebook’s latest security breach

At the end of September, Facebook faced an attack on its computer network which exposed the personal information of nearly 50 million users.

The breach was the largest in the company’s 14-year history.

The attackers exploited a feature in Facebook’s code to gain access to user accounts and potentially take control of them.

Facebook has provided few updates so far on the extent of the attack but said in a blog post-Tuesday that third-party apps that allow users to log in using Facebook credentials were not affected as far as they could tell.

For marketers, the lack of information about the extent of the breach and what it will mean has led to some confusion.

Overall, though, they are continuing business as usual—at least for now.

“[Data breaches have] happened so many times that people are like, ‘Well, this sounds pretty bad, but what are we going to do?’

We still have to advertise on Facebook,” said Kevin Urrutia, a co-founder and partner at the agency Voy Media, which specializes in Facebook and Instagram advertising. “ … At some point, you become so used to it that it barely registers.”

Kerry Perse, the managing director of social at media agency OMD, similarly said that while advertisers are aware of the breach, the agency did not foresee the breach having any significant or immediate impact on spend levels.

The challenge for advertisers, however, is to determine the effects the breach may have on Facebook user growth and user confidence in the long run.

In a survey of U.S. consumers conducted in July, Facebook was ranked the least-trusted brand among the top 100 consumer-facing Fortune 500 brands.


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