267 Million People’s Personal Details Including Phone Numbers Exposed After Facebook Leak

Cybersecurity researchers are reporting that more than 267 million Facebook users had their personal data exposed by an online database that collected their names, Facebook IDs, and phone numbers leaving them vulnerable to hackers, texting scams, and phishing schemes.

The private information was shared to a popular online forum frequented by hackers, which was discovered by cybersecurity firm Comparitech in collaboration with security researcher Bob Diachenko. The database was available online without a password to anyone who accessed it for about two weeks, according to Bob.

While researchers are yet to establish how the database was created, they believe the operation could be run out of a criminal network in Vietnam. Diachenko said records belonging to 267,140,436 people were exposed.

The analyst says the data was potentially compromised through an API that gives developers access to back-end data, such as friend lists, groups, and photos.

Facebook has come under fire in recent years because of what some perceive to be lax security protocols. the most famous being the incident with related to Cambridge Analytica- The company that mined Kenyan voters’ data to help President Uhuru Kenyatta win disputed elections.

“Facebook, Twitter, Google and other technology companies that facilitate or amplify work by outfits such as Cambridge Analytica are complicit in poisoning democracies around the world.” Celebrated journalist Larry Madowo on “How Cambridge Analytica poisoned Kenya’s democracy”