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WASHINGTON: A leaker says they are offering information on more than 500 million Facebook users, including phone numbers and other information, for virtually free.
The database appears to be the same set of Facebook-linked phone numbers that has been circulating in hacker circles since January and whose existence was first reported by tech publication Motherboard, according to Alon Gal, co-founder of the Israeli firm. Cybercrime Intelligence Agency Hudson Rock.
He denounced what he called the “utter negligence” of Facebook.
Reuters could not immediately examine the information, which is offered for a few euros in digital credit on a site known to low-level hackers, but Gal said on Saturday that it had verified the authenticity of at least some of the data by comparing it with the phone numbers of people he knew.
Other journalists say they have also been able to match known phone numbers to the details of the data dump.
“This means that if you have a Facebook account, it is very likely that the phone number used for the account has been leaked,” Gal said.
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In a statement, Facebook said the data was “very old” and related to an issue it had fixed in August 2019.
About 32 million US accounts and 20 million French accounts were among those affected, Gal tweeted in January, when the person with the data was trying to sell it.
The data includes phone numbers, full names, dates of birth, and, for some accounts, email addresses and relationship status.
“Bad actors will certainly use the information for social engineering, scam, hacking and marketing,” Gal said on Twitter.
This is not the first time that leaks or use of data from the world’s largest social network, with nearly 2 billion users, has engulfed Facebook in controversy.
In 2016, a scandal surrounding Cambridge Analytica, a British consulting firm that used the personal data of millions of Facebook users to target political ads, cast a shadow over the social network and its handling of private information.
An attempt by Reuters to reach the leaker via the Telegram messaging service was not immediately successful.
Gal told Reuters that Facebook users should be on the lookout for “social engineering attacks” from people who may have obtained their phone numbers or other private data in the coming months.
Business Insider first reported on the latest leak.
