The leaked data of over 533 million Facebook users includes phone numbers, email addresses, dates of birth, and job information to name a few.
Social media platforms and user data leaks are no strangers to each other. Hackers often exploit a vulnerability to scrape data, and sometimes, sheer abuse happens by seemingly legit clients. Remember the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal? Well, Facebook is again at the center of another huge data leak that has seen the personal information of over half a billion users making its way online. As per a report by BusinessInsider, the data of over 533 million users – which includes details such as phone number, email address, job info, and date of birth to name a few – was put up for sale online. And later, it was shared freely on the web. BusinessInsider claims to have verified the leak by matching certain Facebook user phone numbers with the identification number in the leaked data set, and also verified the email addresses using the password reset feature. Liz Bourgeois, who is Director of Strategic Response Communications at Facebook, tweeted the leaked data originated from a vulnerability that was fixed back in 2019. Though the leaked data might be two years old, even if 1% of affected users still have that phone number and email address linked to their Facebook profile, the number of users whose personal data was leaked stands at over 5 million.
