Another flaw in Facebook’s systems was exposed by experts. A private research company uncovered that a hacker site had over 1.5 billion FB user profiles for sale. Concerned consumers can utilize internet tools to see if they are affected by the Facebook Data Breach 2021.
In the previous few days, Facebook has had a lot of issues. It just experienced a power outage, which knocked off all of its internet-connected services (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Oculus). The corporation is also facing legal action after a whistleblower said it is putting “its own interests, such as earning more money,” ahead of user well-being.
Experts are now expressing their newest concern over Facebook’s user data security and privacy. Privacy Affairs, a private cybersecurity business, performed the study.
You might also like: Cambridge Analytica Scandal Makes Facebook Fined USD 5 billion
1.5 Billion User Data Has Been Stolen
According to TechRepublic, 1.5 billion Facebook user records were discovered for sale on the internet. With about 3 billion registered users on Facebook, this means that half of the platform’s overall population had their data stolen.
The stolen information was recovered via scraping publicly accessible data from Facebook user accounts. Malicious actors may have harvested data using bot tools such as plugins and quizzes.
Miklos Zoltan, Founder of Privacy Affairs explained to TechRepublic,
“Every time someone enters one of these (Facebook) surveys or quizzes, they permit the creators of these games to view their personal Facebook information, they permit the creators of these games to view their personal Facebook information,”
Privacy Affairs compared the seller’s data sample to all known Facebook leaks and found no matches. However, upon closer inspection, the data looked to be genuine. This indicates that new and legitimate Facebook data has been taken.
Data such as Facebook user IDs, names, email addresses, locations, gender, phone numbers, and other personal information was sold online. Malicious actors can use this data to phish, swindle, spam, intercept messages, and even try a hack on the victim’s account.
Because of Facebook’s initiative, the sale post was taken down as of Wednesday (October, 6 2021). However, it is unclear at this time if the information would be uploaded or abused on another hacker website.
How to Know if Your Data Has Been Leaked or Not?
Users who are concerned about their accounts can utilize two online tools to check on their accounts. These tools can tell you whether or not your information has been hacked. These tools may also check if your account has been hacked or published on hacker websites.
Have I Been Pwned
Troy Hunt, a Microsoft Regional Director, created the data breach prevention tool Have I Been Pwned. Simply click the link and enter your email or phone number to utilize the tool. The tool would compare your information to any data breaches that had been reported. The data is maintained up to date, so you may consult it whenever you are worried.
The News Each Day
The News Every Day is a newly designed database leak prevention tool. To use this tool, simply enter your phone number, and it will search the internet for any matches. According to The Verge, this tool would create random phone numbers to mask your true number throughout each search, according to David Johnstone.
