Facebook users from 106 countries, including more than 32 million users here in the United States, had their Facebook IDs, full names, phone numbers, locations, birthdates, bios, and in some cases, email addresses leaked to public forums.
Business Insider first broke the news, revealing that a sample of the leaked data was reviewed and determined to be a match.
"We also verified records by testing email addresses from the data set in Facebook's password reset feature, which can be used to partially reveal a user's phone number," the Insider reported.
One of the first to notify the world about the leak was Alon Gal, CTO of cybercrime intelligence firm Hudson Rock. Gal tweeted that all 533 million Facebook records "were just leaked for free."
"This means that if you have a Facebook account, it is extremely likely the phone number used for the account was leaked," he added. "I have yet to see Facebook acknowledging this absolute negligence of your data."
According to Gal, "bad actors" will almost certainly use the leaked data "for social engineering, scamming, hacking and marketing."
"A database of that size containing the private information such as phone numbers of a lot of Facebook's users would certainly lead to bad actors taking advantage of the data to perform social engineering attacks [or] hacking attempts," he further told the Insider.
Why doesn't Facebook care about protecting the private data of its users?
The breach apparently occurred back in January right around the time that fake "president" Joe Biden was installed into the White House. Gal learned about it in a low-level hacking forum.
It is just the latest of many Facebook hacks that have occurred over the years, exposing millions upon millions of users' private information to the public. In each case, there was nothing Facebook could do after the fact other than to make up excuses or ignore the problem.
At no point has Facebook taken seriously the ease with which hackers have repeatedly been able to steal data from its servers. This latest incident is no exception.
"Individuals signing up to a reputable company like Facebook are trusting them with their data and Facebook [is] supposed to treat the data with utmost respect," Gal says. "Users having their personal information leaked is a huge breach of trust and should be handled accordingly."
One would think that Facebook would be all over trying to secure the private data of its users, if for no other reason than to protect its advertising cash cow. The reason why Facebook is "free," after all, is because Facebook sells your data to third parties for a profit.
If hackers are able to steal that data, though, then Facebook can no longer sell it because it is already out there for the taking. Perhaps the amount of data lost in these breaches is simply not enough for Facebook to care in terms of its own revenues. Still, the platform has a duty to protect its users' private data for their benefit.
"Fecesbook has your real name and your phone number if anyone has you in their phones' contacts," wrote one Zero Hedge commenter.
"A lot of people don't get this," warned another. "Facebook has shadow profiles on virtually everyone who has ever used the internet or owned a phone ... I'm sure I'm barely touching on the full intrusive glory of it all. If you use modern technology, you are being tracked."
More related news about Facebook and the evil tech giants can be found at Evil.news.
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