Researchers from Comparitech announced that the personal data of more than 267 million users of the social network Facebook was found publicly available on the Internet. We are talking about usernames and phone numbers collected in a database that was not password protected. This means that anyone could have access to it.
According to researcher Bob Diachenko, the database he discovered was in the public domain for about two weeks. He also noted that before being made publicly available, the database was available for download on one of the hacker forums. The specialist notes that a large amount of personal data of Facebook users could be used by attackers to send spam and carry out phishing attacks.
βWe're looking into this issue, but we believe this information predates changes we've made over the past several years to improve the security of user data,β a Facebook spokesperson said in response to the issue.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time that personal data of users of the social network Facebook has been made publicly available. In September, researchers discovered a publicly accessible database containing data from 419 million Facebook users. Leaks of personal data of Facebook users happen regularly and are often accompanied by major scandals that lead to fines. Facebook developers continue to improve data protection tools, but so far these mechanisms are far from ideal.
Source: 3dnews.ru