Personal data and phones of 533 million Facebook users leaked to the Internet

On April 3, a database with personal data of 533 million Facebook users from 106 countries was published on one of the hacker forums. It includes phone numbers, identifiers, full names, locations, dates of birth, and biographical information. In some cases, e-mail addresses are also indicated.

Business Insider confirmed data authenticity by matching the phone numbers of well-known Facebook users with the identifiers specified in the set. Representatives of the social network told the portal that the data was extracted using a vulnerability, which the company fixed back in 2019.

According to a cybersecurity expert at Hudson Rock, the leaked database can be very valuable for fraudsters who impersonate other people and trick other people into credentials. Criminals will certainly use this information for social engineering or hacking attempts. This may also affect users from Russia - there are almost 10 million records of Russian citizens in the database.

The leak was first discovered back in January, when a user on the same hacker forum advertised automated bot providing phone numbers of hundreds of millions of Facebook users for a certain fee.