Facebook won’t inform its users about whose data was leaked in the massive data breach
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Facebook won’t inform its users about whose data was leaked in the massive data breach
The data of up to 533 million Facebook users was exposed on the internet
The leaked data from Facebook’s platform contained the users’ phone numbers, Facebook IDs, birthdates, and other personal information
According to reports, Facebook has no plans to inform its users whose data was exposed in the social media giant’s major data breach. The data of up to 533 million Facebook users was exposed on the internet as a result of the hack. The data contained the users’ phone numbers, Facebook IDs, birthdates, and other personal information. However, Facebook stated that the data was scraped from their platform before September 2019 and not collected.
Also read: Facebook responds to the data breach, claiming that the information was scraped and not hacked
Hackers accessed user data by scraping it from Facebook’s systems, according to a blog post. The social media giant explained that it was scraped rather than hacked, and that it occurred before September 2019. “Scraping is a common tactic that often relies on automated software to lift public information from the internet that can end up being distributed in online forums like this”, Facebook explains.
The Facebook spokesperson claimed, that the company was unsure whether it had complete insight into which users would need to be updated. Users couldn’t solve the problem themselves, according to the spokesperson, and the evidence was publicly accessible in choosing not to alert users.
Facebook has said that data was scraped from the social media platforms by cybercriminals using their contact importer feature. The feature was launched by the company to help users locate their friends. Facebook, stated that it made improvements to the contact importer in 2019 after becoming aware of how malicious actors were exploiting the tool. The company went on to say that the information gathered did not include financial and health information, or passwords.
Any data scraping is against Facebook’s terms of service, according to the company, which has teams working to identify and prevent such actions. It is also seeking to get this data set withdrawn. There is also a “dedicated team focused on this work,” according to the statement.
Furthermore, Facebook advises users to update their “How People Find and Contact You” control to the most recent version. It’s also a good idea to allow two-factor authentication on Facebook.
Cybersecurity experts, on the other hand, argue that the breach is not as old as Facebook says.
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