Known as the largest and most commonly used social media platform, Facebook became a part of our everyday lives. It’s where we connect with our colleagues and family members. The platform became our go-to place when we want entertainment, updates, and more.
In the past few years, Facebook developed different features allowing its users to buy and sell in its newly released Facebook Marketplace. Despite the benefits and advantages of using Facebook, just like other platforms, it has drawbacks. Last April 3, 2021, news about Facebook data leakage was announced.
Facebook opted not to warn its users that a dataset containing hundreds of million people from 106 countries had been released on a hacker forum, despite the fact that the data had been ripped from Facebook in 2019.
If that million figure sounds familiar, it's because it seems to be from the same database that people might compensate for parts of using a Telegram app, as Motherboard recorded in January.
The exposed data contains the personal details of over 533 million FB users from 106 countries. With 11 million Facebook accounts in the UK, over 32 million accounts of users in the United States, and more than 6 million profiles in India. Contact numbers, Facebook IDs, personal details, places, dates of birth, bios, and, email addresses are all used. An intruder can theoretically duplicate your phone number and initiate a two-factor authentication (2FA) verification mechanism to take control of your email address if they have similar contact information.
Facebook claimed in an interview that data was scrapped as a result of a loophole that it patched in 2019. According to the spokeswoman, the corporation does not have full trust in determining which consumers must be informed. He also stated that when determining whether to contact users, Facebook considered the fact that the data was publicly accessible and that it was not a problem that users should resolve on their own.
Experts believe the problem is still severe, whether it occurred in 2021 or years before, owing to the quality of the leaked results. Even though the records do not contain passwords, it is important that such identities do not change often, according to Rob Shavell, CEO of DeleteMe, a personal data security tool.
The new violation exacerbates the antitrust battle raging in Washington. Facebook has had data protection problems in the past, most recently when the political company Cambridge Analytica downloaded data from up to 87 million people without their consent.
According to Varoon Bashyakarla, a computer scientist who works as a technical advisor to the Real Facebook Oversight Board, the recent breach highlights the need for additional legislation in the EU. He stated, “this incident underscores the need for Facebook to respond to European regulators and not merely American ones.” “If there are no consequences for incidents like this one, they will continue, as we’ve observed over the last several years.”
