Personal data of more than 500 million Facebook users have been posted on a website for hackers.
According to reports, that leaked data is comprised of phone numbers, Facebook IDs, full names, locations, birth dates, bios and in some cases email addresses from over 533 million users from 106 countries including the US, UK, India and Canada.
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The information is available for free on a hacking forum, making it widely accessible to anyone with rudimentary data skills.
“This is old data that was previously reported on in 2019,” a Facebook spokesperson wrote in an email statement. “We found and fixed this issue in August 2019.”
While the information appears to be several years old, a few industry analysts say it is another example of the vast amount of data being collected social media sites such as Facebook and the limits of their capabilities in securing these data.
Facebook, over the years, faced numerous criticism with regards to how it handles customer data. In 2018, the social media giant drew the ire of various US and European regulatory bodies over its seemingly lax data protection and management strategies; after political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica accessed information and improperly used more than 87 million Facebook users without their knowledge or consent.
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With more than 2.7 billion users and a market value of nearly $800 billion, Facebook is the world’s biggest social network. Its CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also been named as the world’s fifth-richest person.
