Posted on by Olivia Brown

Facebook Data of 533M Users Uploaded by a Hacker – Are You at Risk?

Reports say that the data is from 2019

Facebook Data of 533M Users Uploaded by a Hacker - Are You at Risk?
Image: Brett Jordan

A hacker has published the Facebook data of 533 million people for free. It is a cause for concern for most people who own a Facebook account. Australians are also at risk. Read on to know the details.

 

Details of the leaked Facebook data

According to a report, a hacker has leaked Facebook data, including full names, bio, email addresses, birthdays, locations, and phone numbers of 533 million users from 106 nations online. This data is available for free. The hacker who shared the Facebook data was a part of a hacking forum and shared the information this Saturday.

Reports say that the data is from 2019. The Facebook data leak comprises 32 million US users, 11 million UK users, and 7 million Australian users.

 

Explaining the Facebook data hacking, the tech giant said that data was scraped thanks to a vulnerability it patched in 2019 itself. It is not the first time the company’s data has been revealed due to scraping. The most popular was the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which data of millions of users was harvested and used to predict and influence the polls.

Though Facebook has not confirmed the reports of data leaks, the Director of Strategic Response Communications, Liz Bourgeois, used Twitter to talk about it. She wrote, “This is old data that was previously reported on in 2019. We found and fixed this issue in August 2019.”

 

Though Facebook is trying to fix the situation by saying that the leaked data is not recent, cybersecurity experts say that criminals can still use the social media data to do damage. The CTO of a Cybercrime Intelligence Firm, Hudson Rock, Alon Gal, stated that criminals could take advantage of data to conduct social engineering attacks or hacks. Gal was the first one to discover the Facebook data leak on Saturday. So, if you have not changed your password on Facebook for the last few years, now is the right time to do that. After all, it is better to be safe than sorry. Won’t you agree?

 

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