by Facebook has suffered another data breach, in which the records of more than 419 million users in different countries being made public…
(Credit Engadget)
A security researcher has discovered databases containing more than 419 million records tied to Facebook accounts.
It appears the data — which includes phone numbers and Facebook IDs and in some cases users’ names, genders and countries — was scraped from the platform.
It’s not clear who pulled that information from Facebook or why.
Facebook Data Leak Affects more than 419 Million Users
The dataset included 133 million records on Facebook users in the US, 18 million on people in the UK and 50 million on users in Vietnam.
A Facebook ID is a unique number linked with each account, and it’s easy to find the user to whom it’s linked.
Facebook restricted access to users’ phone numbers more than a year ago, so the data seems to be relatively old.
The leak could put them at risk of spam calls and SIM-swapping scams that could endanger their online accounts – not just on Facebook — as people tend to hang onto their numbers for a long time.
“This dataset 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,” Facebook spokesperson Jay Nancarrow told TechCrunch.
Facebook, of course, has faced numerous privacy issues over the years, including the Cambridge Analytica scandal that led to a $5 billion Federal Trade Commission settlement.
Several other instances occurred this year in which millions of Facebook and Instagram users’ details were exposed, but not by the company itself.
Last fall, a data breach exposed the private information of 29 million users.
