A WEBSITE for hackers revealed the details of 11 million Facebook users from the UK.
The data breach affected over 500 million Facebook users globally but the tech giant says the stolen data is old and was taken during a breach in 2019.
The hacker website contained information about people from 106 countries.
Phone numbers, Facebook IDs, names, birthdays and locations was just some of the valuable data about unknowing individuals being posted on the site.
Business Insider recently reported on the breach which saw a user of a low low-level hacking forum re-publish the stolen data over the weekend.
Facebook told the outlet that the data was stolen in 2019 due to a flaw which the company has now patched.
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In a statement Facebook said: “This is old data that was previously reported on in 2019.
“We found and fixed this issue in August 2019.”
Despite the data being old, criminals could still attempt to use it to impersonate people.
Alon Gal, the chief technology officer of the cybercrime intelligence firm Hudson Rock, spotted the republished data on the hacker forum.
He told Business Insider: “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 observed how the data was re-published online for free.
Facebook has vowed to put a stop to data scraping after several such incidents have occurred on the social media network.
Companies are legally required to tell you if they know your data has been breached so if you were affected by the 2019 Facebook data leak you probably already know about it.
You can also use websites like HaveIBeenPwned.com to check whether your email address is associated with a compromised account.
Why does it feel like Facebook is snooping on you?
Here’s what you need to know…
- The magic of targeted advertising is that it should feel relevant to you – even if you can’t figure out why.
- Facebook doesn’t need to spy on your real-life conversations, because you hand over so much information anyway.
- Follow this link and you’ll be able to download everything Facebook knows about you. Most of you will quickly realise it’s a staggering amount of information.
- Advertisers can use information gleaned from your activity all across the web, on multiple devices, even if you’re not logged into Facebook or other services.
- They’ll likely know where you live, what you like, who your friends are, how much money you make, your political beliefs and much more.
- So when you get ads for something you’ve talked about out loud, it’s almost certainly just advertisers being very good at predicting your interests.
- It’s also possible that there’s an advertising campaign running, and you’ve seen an ad and not noticed. You’ve then spoken about it, never realising you’ve been advertised to, and only then notice future ads – which suddenly seem suspicious.
- Let’s say you talked about a holiday to Scotland, and then all of a sudden you’re being advertised holidays to Scotland.
- You may never have searched for anything to do with that before.
- But Facebook could use info about your level of wealth, your past holiday interests, the time of year (ads for wintry Scottish retreats are common in the colder months), and your location.
- What seems like snooping is actually just clever advertising.
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In other news, LG is leaving the phone business.
Fraudsters are posing as contacts on Whatsapp to hack into people’s phones.
And, Apple may be preparing to unleash a flurry of new gadgets in a matter of days.
Do you worry about online privacy? Let us know in the comments…
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This post first appeared on Thesun.co.uk
