Another news broke out that would make the Facebook users worry about their privacy. Private data of over 533 million Facebook users have been leaked on a hacking forum. The data includes phone numbers of the users, full names, birthdates, bios, location, etc. Facebook has been facing serious criticism for some time on the issue of data privacy.
The phone numbers and other personal information of the millions of users were published by a user of a low-level hacking network on Saturday.
Alon Gal, CTO of Hudson Rock cyber intelligence firm broke the news of the data leak. He has warned about the data leak in January stating that the data was being advertised by a Telegram Bot. Now the data is available for free and that makes a more serious threat to the user’s privacy and security if it is accessed by cybercriminals.
Gal said that such private and detailed information will lure cybercriminals to take advantage and carry on social engineering attacks or hacking attempts.
Although the data seems to be a couple of years old and been circulating in the hacker groups, it provides the information that makes impersonating or scamming the users a piece of cake for cybercriminals, added Gal.
Approximately 533 million users’ data from 106 countries have been leaked. The worst affected countries are the US, UK, and India. Data of around 32 million US users, 11 million UK users, and 6 million Indian users is available for free and could be accessed by the bad guys of the cyberworld.
Also read:
- 300% Rise In Cyberattacks In India Last Year
- Indian Vaccine Companies target of Chinese backed Hacker Group
What did Facebook have to say?
World’s biggest social media company said that the data is old and was reported in the year 2019. They added that they have fixed the issue in August 2019 itself.
Although the company has claimed that they have fixed the issue but the data is still available on hacker platforms and thus the measures to fix the issue probably are irrelevant now.
Enough steps for protecting the privacy of its users? You decide.
