Massive Database Of Facebook Users’ Phone Numbers Found Online

During the early days of social media, many of us probably never really thought too much about handing over personal information to these platforms, assuming that they would never be used against us, or what kind of implications there might be for giving away this kind of details on the internet.

Unfortunately, we are starting to find out the impact of having given away this kind of information. This is because according to a report from TechCrunch, a security researcher who is a member of the GDI Foundation who goes by the name Sanyam Jain, discovered a database online in which it seemed to contain a ton of personal information about Facebook users, including phone numbers.

It also contained more than 419 million records associated with a variety of Facebook accounts, where some of this information also included usernames, gender, and where they were from. It is unclear who might have pulled the information from Facebook and why it was uploaded. After being contacted by TechCrunch, the web host who hosted the database took it offline.

In a statement made to Engadget, a Facebook spokesperson said, “This dataset is old and appears to have information obtained before we made changes last year to remove people’s ability to find others using their phone numbers. The dataset has been taken down and we have seen no evidence that Facebook accounts were compromised. The underlying issue was addressed as part of a Newsroom post on April 4th 2018 by Facebook’s Chief Technology Officer.”

Tyler Lee
Categories: General
Tags: Hack, Privacy, Security