Unsurprisingly, Facebook faces serious problems when it comes to privacy. But periodically information comes up that shows how one of the world’s leading social networks is insecure. That’s because, according to the TechCrunch portal, an exposed server with over 419 million Facebook user records has been discovered online.
The server contained no password protection and was accessible to anyone. Among the data, 133 million US-based Facebook user registrations, 18 million from the UK and another 50 million from Vietnam. They contained the unique Facebook ID along with the phone number listed on the account.
This bank was found by security researcher Sanyam Jaim, who found phone numbers associated with a number of celebrities. It is unclear who owns it and where it came from, but was removed after TechCrunch action.
The network run by Mark Zuckerberg provides unique numeric IDs that can be associated with an account to find out a person’s username. Although Facebook restricted access to phone numbers a little over a year ago, the record is older, obtained before the company’s policy change.
This dataset is old and seems to have information obtained before we made changes last year to remove people’s ability to find other people using their phone numbers, “said the spokesman.” The dataset has been pulled and not we saw no evidence that Facebook accounts were compromised. “
Facebook, in a statement.
TechCrunch was able to verify a number of records in the database by comparing a known network user’s phone number with a listed Facebook ID. Others were verified from the combination of phone number and password reset, which can be used to reveal some digits of the phone number. Some data also revealed usernames, gender, and user location.
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Needless to mention what risks these users were exposed to. There are a number of scams that can be applied, such as SIM hacking – a scam where a cybercriminal calls an operator and requests a SIM transfer to a specific number.
Source: MacRumors