New Facebook Data Leaked- 419 Million Users Database Found Online
Including User genders, Phone numbers, User names and Countries.
Sanyam Jain, a security researcher and member of the GDI Foundation, found 419 million records of Facebook database. He found profiles with phone numbers associated with several celebrities.
All the information available publicly on online Facebook server, that was not password protected.
According to TechCrunch, the exposed server contained more than 419 million records over several databases on users across geographies,
- Including 133 million records on U.S.-based Facebook users,
- 18 million records of users in the U.K.,
- Another with more than 50 million records on users in Vietnam.
Also See – Facebook Stored Passwords In Plain-Text Mistakenly
But because the server wasn’t protected with a password, anyone could find and access the database, Jain said.
Each database record contained a user’s unique Facebook ID and the phone number listed on the account. A user’s Facebook ID is typically a long, unique and public number associated with their account, which can be easily used to discern an account’s username.
Is Risk High?
Yes, millions of users phone number data can use for Sim-swapping attacks and the cyber attacker can reset the password by using a user phone number.
Last week, as we have seen Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Account Hacked due to Sim-Swapping attack.
After that Twitter announced that, “We’re temporarily turning off the ability to Tweet via SMS, or text message, to protect people’s accounts.”
This Facebook biggest leak comes after Cambridge Data Analytic, which was leaked more than 80 million users Facebook profiles.
Facebook spokesperson Jay Nancarrow told to Techcrunch, “the data had been scraped before Facebook cut off access to user phone numbers.”
“This data set is old and appears to have information obtained before we made changes last year to remove people’s ability to find others using their phone numbers,” the spokesperson said. “The data set has been taken down and we have seen no evidence that Facebook accounts were compromised.”
Facebook is facing privacy issue for years.
