Someone has gotten their hands on a database full of Facebook users’ phone numbers, and is now selling that data using a telegram bot, a report said. Motherboard. Elon Gale, a security researcher who sees this vulnerability, says that the person operating the bot claims to have the information of 3.53 million users, which came from a vulnerability of Facebook, which came in 2019.
As with many databases, finding any useful data requires some technical skills. And there needs to be frequent contact between the person with the database and the person trying to get information from it, because the “owner” of the database does not give all that valuable data to anyone else. Building a telegram boat, however, solves both of these issues.
A few days ago, a user created a telegram bot that allows users to query a database for a low fee, allowing people to find phone numbers associated with a very large number of Facebook accounts.
This obviously has a huge impact on privacy. pic.twitter.com/lM1omndDET
– Elon Gale (under breach) (userbrech) January 14, 2021
Bots allow someone to do two things: if they have a person’s Facebook user ID, they can find that person’s phone number, and if they have a person’s phone number, they can find their Facebook user ID. Still, of course, getting money access to the information you’re really looking for – unlocking a piece of information like a phone number or Facebook ID, costs a credit, which the person behind the boat sells for ડ 20. According to the Motherboard report, 10,000 credits are sold at 5,000, with bulk pricing also available.
According to a screenshot posted by Gal Gal, BUT has been running since at least January 12, 2021, but the data it provides access to is from 2019. It’s relatively old, but people don’t change phone numbers often. It’s especially embarrassing for Facebook because those users have historically collected phone numbers of people, including users who turned on two-factor authentication.
If at the moment it is unknown Motherboard Or security researchers have approached the Telegram in an attempt to bring the bot down, but hopefully it’s something that could be clamped up soon. It’s not too bright to paint a picture, though – the data is still out on the web, and has been republished several times since it was first launched in 2019. I just hope the easy cess will be cut.
