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Facebook BREACH: Cyber Experts Say Half a Billion User’s Information Posted Online
A Facebook breach had the personal information of around half a billion users, including emails and phone numbers, posted to a website hackers use, as per cybersecurity experts.
Several records appearing on such questionable websites reveal the information of more than 32 million US accounts, 11 million UK accounts, and 5 million India accounts, among others, as per Alon Gal, Hudson Rock’s CTO of Cyber Intelligence.
Some of the details recorded and revealed include a person’s full name, location and date of birth, as well as their email addresses, relationship status, and even mobile number.
Facebook Breach Was of “Old Data”
According to Andy Stone, a Facebook spokesperson, the breach involved “old data” from 2019. According to Stone, they have already fixed the said problem way back in August 2020.
However, the social media giant did not reveal whether they will notify the affected people.
Stone also said that, in 2019, Facebook had removed the user function of directly finding other people using their mobile number on the platform and on Instagram. Cybercriminals could have easily exploited this function through a software code that could imitate Facebook.
While the data is from 2019, hackers and cybercriminals would still find it valuable.
While the Facebook leak happened in 2019, all the information that leaked will likely stay on the Internet. In the US alone, 30 million users were affected, and Facebook doesn’t tell you if you’re one of them.
Luckily, a third-party website, haveibeenpwned.com, lets you easily find out if you were by inputting your email. However, for now, it only checks if the email you provided was included with the ones stolen.
However, there’s still a pretty big catch. Of the 533 million accounts affected, only 2.5 million of these users had their email stolen. Therefore, you have a half-percent chance of being searchable on the third-party website. However, you have a 20% chance of being one of those affected in the breach.
According to security expert and HaveIBeenPwned founder Troy Hunt, he is still thinking about whether to add phone numbers on the website as the value of the leaked date is on the phone numbers.
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