400 Million Unsecured Phone Numbers on Facebook

World | September 5, 2019, Thursday // 19:43
Bulgaria: 400 Million Unsecured Phone Numbers on Facebook

The server of the company is left without a password.


Phone numbers linked to more than 400 million Facebook accounts remained unsecured online in the latest privacy leak for the social media giant, BGNES reported.

The exposed server stores 419 million user data in several databases - 133 million accounts in the US, more than 50 million in Vietnam and 18 million in the UK, according to tech news site TechCruch. The databases contained social network user IDs unique numbers attached to each account. The accounts contained telephone numbers of the accounts, as well as the gender indicated by some accounts and their geographical location, the technology website reported.

The server was left un-passworded, meaning that anyone was able to access the databases, and remained so until late Wednesday when TechCrunch connected to the site host.

The company confirmed parts of the report, but downplayed the expiration rate, saying that so far the confirmed accounts are about half of the reported 419 million. The company also added that many of the accounts are duplicates and the data is old. "The data set has been downloaded and we have no evidence that Facebook accounts have been compromised," a corporation spokesman told AFP.

Following the Cambridge Analytics scandal in 2018, when millions of users' personal information leaked, the company has deactivated a feature that allows users to search the platform by phone numbers.

Publishing a user's phone number makes it vulnerable to spam calls, a SIM change - as recently happened to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey - by hackers who can reset passwords on compromised accounts.

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!

World » Be a reporter: Write and send your article
Tags: social media, Facebook, leak, personal data, phone numbers, Twitter

Advertisement
Advertisement
Bulgaria news Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency - www.sofianewsagency.com) is unique with being a real time news provider in English that informs its readers about the latest Bulgarian news. The editorial staff also publishes a daily online newspaper "Sofia Morning News." Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency - www.sofianewsagency.com) and Sofia Morning News publish the latest economic, political and cultural news that take place in Bulgaria. Foreign media analysis on Bulgaria and World News in Brief are also part of the web site and the online newspaper. News Bulgaria