Facebook acknowledges that the personal information of 533 million users was posted online, but the data is believed to be more than a ‘’year old’’

A user in a low-level hacking forum has shared the personal information like phone numbers and personal data of more than half-billion users online. These users whose information has been shared online are from 106 different countries and about 32 million users are from the US, more than 11 million users are from the UK and almost 6 million users are from India. Personal information also includes other details such as the full name of a user, Facebook ID, bios and the email address of some of the users. As there were already many allegations on Facebook for leaking the privacy of many users. This data was first highlighted in January by cybercrime intelligence firm Hudson Rock when the users of the Telegram app were required to pay to search for the database. Hacker took the advantage of the fault that Facebook fixed in August 2019, but this leaked data was about a year old before fixing this flaw.

The users who are new on the platform or the ones who have changed their key information in a time since the fix are not in a trouble, but for those users, who have been on the platform before this fix, this breach left those users vulnerable. One thing must be kept in mind that these personal details are not new. Prior to this year, cybercriminal forum was trying to use these details to sell access to the details like phone number which is linked to the account of Facebook. The co-founder of Hudson Rock told that leakage of personal details is worrisome and can be used in fraudulent activities by the bad actors, and no one is bound to use such details as they are free to use. Anyone who has low-level coding skills can get information about where it was hosted. As the people have already been alarmed with this leakage that their data can be used in hacking and scamming.

Facebook is going through such a difficult situation where it does not have a strong argument to defend itself, as, it is a reminder that it’s a huge amount of data that the company has been gathered from the users and how negligent it can be while protecting the personal details of its users. Facebook now apparently in a weak position to protect the data from getting into circulation. Hackers mostly use this information like date of birth, phone numbers, and names because this information cannot be changed and it does not even matter how old this information is, still, these it is valuable for scammers.

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