Also read
Details of more than 500 million Facebook users have been found available on a website for hackers.
The information appears to be several years old, but it is another example of the vast amount of information collected by Facebook and other social media sites, and the limits to how secure that information is.
The availability of the data set was first reported by Business Insider. According to that publication, it has information from 106 countries including phone numbers, Facebook IDs, full names, locations, birthdates, and email addresses.
Facebook has been grappling with data security issues for years. In 2018, the social media giant disabled a feature that allowed users to search for one another via phone number following revelations that the political firm Cambridge Analytica had accessed information on up to 87 million Facebook users without their knowledge or consent.
In December 2019, a Ukrainian security researcher reported finding a database with the names, phone numbers and unique user IDs of more than 267 million Facebook users — nearly all U.S.-based — on the open internet. It is unclear if the current data dump is related to this database.
"This is old data that was previously reported on in 2019," the Menlo Park, California-based company said in a statement. "We found and fixed this issue in August 2019,” the company added.
For in-depth, objective and more importantly balanced journalism, Click here to subscribe to Outlook Magazine
How Much Would You Pay For A Kidney?
Rajasthan Runs Out Of Stock Of Covid Vaccines; Imposes Night Curfew Across The State
Prostitution Racket Busted: 4 Women Among 10 Held In Police Raid In Greater Noida
Lockdown In Delhi? Arvind Kejriwal To Discuss Covid Situation With LG Today