In 2019, a private security researcher reported finding a database with the names, phone numbers, and unique user IDs of over 267 million Facebook users. Ireland’s privacy watchdog Data Protection Commission (DPC) has fined Meta €91M ($101M) after the discovery in 2019 that Meta had stored 600 million Facebook and Instagram passwords in plaintext. The data encompassed profiles from over 100 countries and included emails, Facebook IDs, birthdays, phone numbers, and other Personally Identifiable Information (PII). That leak consisted of around 200,000 records that contained names, phone numbers, email addresses, Facebook IDs, and Facebook profile information. The data contains email addresses, names, phone numbers and additional personal information. Last February, we reported how personal data belonging to Facebook Marketplace users was published online. September 26, 2024 - Telegram is making changes to make it less attractive for users with criminal intentions, by saying it will share user IPs and phone numbers with authorities. September 25, 2024 - Instagram users are sharing a hoax in enormous numbers in an attempt at preventing Meta from harvesting their posts and photos to train its AI. Over the years, several data sets belonging to Facebook users have circulated on Dark Web marketplaces. While the DPC does not disclose the number of passwords, several sources at the time quoted internal sources at Facebook who said 600 million password were freely accessible to employees. Most of these passwords belonged to Facebook Lite users, but it affected other Facebook and Instagram users as well. The DPC also said that Meta violated GDPR by not using appropriate technical measures to ensure the security of users’ passwords against unauthorized processing. Social media accounts container a lot of personal information which combined with our email addresses provides cybercriminals with information they can use to add credibility to their phishing attempts.
This Cyber News was published on www.malwarebytes.com. Publication date: Tue, 01 Oct 2024 11:13:07 +0000