Recall that on April 3, it became known that the data of more than half a billion Facebook users from 106 countries has been leaked. Now representatives of the social network told about the reason for this incident.
“It is important to understand that malicious actors obtained this data not through hacking our systems; but by scraping it from our platform prior to September 2019” shared with the company. It is also reported that the security hole that led to the massive leak on April 3 is an old problem that was fixed by the company’s specialists back in 2019.
Recall that as a result of the leak, the names, locations, dates of birth, phone numbers and other personal data of 533 million users were posted on the hacker forum.
“It’s a fallacy to think that a breach isn’t serious just because it doesn’t have passwords in it or other maximally sensitive data;” says Zack Allen, director of threat intelligence at the security firm ZeroFox. “It’s also a fallacy to say that a situation isn’t that bad just because it’s old data. And furthermore, phone numbers scare the crap out of me as a form of authentication; which unfortunately is how they’re often used these days.”
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Facebook Leak
As previously reported by the media, more than 553 million Facebook users’ personal data has become available online for free on the hacker’s forums. The database contained information about people from more than 100 countries.
The New York Post claims that Zuckerberg’s phone number was also on the network. One of the Twitter users drew attention to the data leakage of the founder of Facebook.
“Since journalists cannot get a statement from Facebook; maybe they should call him on the number that leaked into the network?” The user noted with irony.
Individuals signing up to a reputable company like Facebook are trusting them with their data; and Facebook should to treat the data with utmost respect. Users having their personal information leaked is a huge breach of trust and should be handled accordingly.
