HACKER Q&A
📣 NhanH

2-factor auth bug of Facebook, any recourse or advice?


After a series of actions, my mom's account has been put in a state where 2-factor are enable, but there is no available method to do so (ie. An empty list of available 2-factor methods). SMS was the only enable method, and it has been removed (by a hacky method). Just to be clear, the phone number are still useable by us, facebook just list an empty list of 2-factor method on login and refuse to proceed.

There is no luck from their help page. There is no form available for this case, even the one where they ask you to submit government-issued id doesn't work (it is only used for disabled account). Although weirdly, we can no longer view the profile of said account, and it turned into "Facebook user" on messenger, with all messages deleted.

The account has a lot of sentimental value to my mom, and I would really appreciate if there is anyway to recover it. Or if by luck an engineer passes by and escalate the bug.


  👤 NhanH Accepted Answer ✓
As to how it happened: FB declined to send sms for login for a week straight. So I tried adding the phone number to a different account. After doing so and verified the number, it was removed as a method of 2-factor on the first account, causing the bug.