@digitalnepalofficial: Nepali cybersecurity researcher Manoj Gautam has discovered an extremely critical security vulnerability in Facebook, earning recognition and a reward from Meta. The flaw, known as a "zero-click account takeover", could allow hackers to gain full control of a user's Facebook account without the user clicking any link or taking any action. Due to the seriousness of the issue, Meta formally acknowledged Gautam's finding and honored him for responsibly reporting the vulnerability. Following this achievement, Gautam has secured 9th position on Meta's global White Hat Hacker leaderboard and 2nd place in Meta's prestigious Platinum League. Although the exact bounty amount has not been disclosed, Meta's official guidelines state that researchers identifying such high-risk vulnerabilities can receive rewards of up to USD 130,000 (over NPR 1 crore 90 lakh), paid via the Bugcrowd platform. Meta has confirmed that the reported flaw has now been fully fixed. Gautam had previously identified another major weakness that allowed bypassing Facebook's two-factor authentication system.

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Monday 02 February 2026 03:23:09 GMT