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More than 533 million Facebook users have had their phone numbers, full names, locations, email addresses, and other biographical information leaked online.
The leak was discovered last week by Alon Gal, Chief Technology Officer of a cybercrime intelligence firm Hudson Rock, after the data was published in a low-level hacking forum, Business Insider reports.
Gal first discovered the initial data hack in January when a user in the forum advertised a bot that would provide the information of the Facebook users for a fee. However, after last week’s leak, the information is now widely and freely available.
Business Insider and Motherboard have both verified the data in the leak. A spokesperson for Facebook told Business Insider the data was years old and was accessed due to a system vulnerability that was fixed in 2019.
Gal tweeted that the leak affected users in 106 countries — including more than 32 million users in the United States — and said that the data gathered could be used by cybercriminals to impersonate or scam users.
“A database of that size containing the private information such as phone numbers of a lot of Facebook’s users would certainly lead to bad actors taking advantage of the data to perform social-engineering attacks [or] hacking attempts,” Gal told Business Insider.
Gal says that Facebook, which has long been plagued with data privacy issues, could have alerted users affected by the breach so that they were aware of the fact that their data was available for use by cybercriminals for phishing schemes or fraud. Other than that, he says there was little else Facebook could do given the fact that the data was already in the public.
“Individuals signing up to a reputable company like Facebook are trusting them with their data, and Facebook [is] supposed to treat the data with utmost respect. Users having their personal information leaked is a huge breach of trust and should be handled accordingly,” he told Business Insider.
This data breach is one of many that has occurred in recent years. In 2020, there were more than 1,000 data breaches and more than 150 million records exposed as a result. A data breach can expose confidential and sensitive information to hackers looking to use the information for nefarious purposes.
Just this February, Facebook paid out $650 million to users in the settlement of a privacy lawsuit, after users alleged the company used photo face-tagging and other biometric data without their permission. Nearly 1.6 million Facebook users in Illinois who submitted claims for the class action lawsuit settlement will be affected.
Lawyers are currently investigating recent data breaches nationwide and the impact that they’ve had on Americans. If you were affected by a data breach, you might be eligible to join or file a class action lawsuit. Share your experience in the comments below.
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54 thoughts onMore Than 500 Million Facebook Users’ Phone Numbers, Personal Information Leaked
This is the life we live in now. No matter what we do online, on our smart phones, or all things cyberspace… We are automatically putting our personal information in the hands of hackers, scammers and even Wall Street investors. The one thing we can no longer live without (our cell phone) is the main thing that will control us, compromise our privacy, deceive and destroy us the moment we let our guard down. One manipulating mind click, and your doomed. Everything we do online requires us to register, check a box to agree TO THEIR TERMS, or down load their app, sign up, log in, or require fees, or some stupid reoccurring payment that you don’t realize it’s charging you until months later and then try to figure out which site to log in to, in order to make it stop. We are unwittingly setting ourselves up for the kill. No matter how you slice it, or butter it up… We’re toast! We are surrounded by crooks and criminals. Our meta data, the algorithms and everything we do, buy, eat, like, search, view, visit, vacation at, locations, our interests, occasions, event plan, write, post, blog, browse, favorite flick, ad click, toc-tic, Instagram pic, hashtag, report or flag, Google earth, email, fb post, baby boast, say the most…. We burn our own toast. . . If you ask me… I personally believe that we are being used. Because everything we do, is providing information that others are using to get rich off of. Albeit, by corporations, hackers, scammers, Wall Street investors, or career criminals, or crooks. But the most irritating of them all are the 1%, Wall Street greed has never been more a winner, as they are in this era of technology. They don’t have to worry much on where to put their money, what stocks to buy, or invest in. We give them everything they could ever want. While we work hard and spend harder, our habits, and our self destructive nature continues to sink us into debt…. The rich has never been more richer, and the poor only thinks they’re rich the minute they have extra money to blow on a much needed vacation while their debts remain dormant and they continue living check to check, day after day, complaining about the same ol thing. But we could change this… If our government passed a bill, that created system, that skimmed off the top, from wall streets trillions. If they’re making money by our daily activities and behaviors, I mean we advertise for many big brand names all the time… And we pay big money to wear clothes or flaunt brands also, and they’re gaining, we’re not gaining shit! But in the tech world. We’ve literally fallen prey to wall street greed and we should all be given a piece of that pie. Trillions of dollars are just building and idly sitting there while most of America remain in the struggle. Sacrifice something to get something else, or stress over putting our kids through college, pay for braces, buy a nice car, keep our kids healthy and warm, fed and mentally prepared enter adult hood with morals, integrity, common sense, dignity, and law abiding citizens. But every decade it only gets harder and more expensive, and further away from the wealth. We need to start making that money more accessible especially when we are all the reason that made it possible to begin with. We can only blame ourselves. When people say they’re paying for others to live… Everyone is paying for the 1% to get richer, while they hardly lift a finger in their big mansion and fancy life style. Who made that ok? WE DID!
Add me please after I am on Facebook then the scam calls start coming in from social security scam to car warranty to insurance I have more blocked numbers than contacts when you call these scam numbers back it says not a working number or just buzz in the phone n the good scammers use local number that do belong to real people that say they have been hacked
no problems here. i don’t use real name, phone numbers, and don’t post my photos. i only bash/review/rate bad businesses.
Add me
My pictures were replaced by some other person and I received texts from hackers claiming to be my nephew setting up a time for me to have coffee with them. I reached out to my nephew who said some weird things had happened to his face book account it was very creepy.
my page has been hacked a few times. Add me please.
Please add me
Please add me I’m getting an excessive amount of texts and emails from unknown people.
I’ve had a feeling that my cell number has been hacked.. Don’t know how to verify the problem.
My page has been hacked so many times it’s unreal.