Social Media

Here is how to check if your Facebook data is part of a major leak exposing millions

Multiple reports over the weekend confirmed that an attacker published details — including names, user IDs, phone numbers, and emails — of more than 533 million Facebook users on a forum. Catalin Cimpanu of The Record also independently reported that the database was available in 106 different country-wise packages.

While most records had phone numbers attached to them, multiple email IDs were also exposed. You can use haveibeenpwned, a website that exhibits email IDs exposed in various breaches to check if your ID was affected; reports The Next Web.

Here’s what you need to do:

  • Head to haveibeenpwned.com on your phone or desktop.
  • Enter your email ID.
  • If your email were compromised, you’d get a warning to change the password and enable two-factor authentication. You can also scroll down on the page to see all the breaches that may have included your credentials tied to the email address you entered.

Alon Gal, CTO of a cybercrime intelligence firm Hudson Rock, stated the following to Business Insider:
“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.”

Facebook has said that this data dump originated from its 2019 breach, and the issue was fixed in August that year. Now that data is public; anyone could obtain it for a few bucks and target millions of individuals for spamming or doxxing.

Source: The Next Web

Read More: Over 533 million Facebook users’ personal data, including phone numbers, have been leaked online.

Sponsored
Ahsan Zafeer

A digital marketing professional specializing in content-based functional areas - Ahsan Zafeer is driven by a never-ending passion for developing, nurturing, and strategizing key content aspects. He writes extensively on tech, digital marketing, SEO, cybersecurity, and emerging technologies. He also serves as a digital marketing strategist and freelance consultant for globally oriented organizations. He tweets @AhsanZafeer

Share
Published by
Ahsan Zafeer

Recent Posts

Create AI Video Backgrounds with YouTube Shorts’ Dream Screen

When it comes to online video streaming, YouTube is among the most well-known options. Every…

1 min ago

Telecom Operators to Automatically Restore SIMs for Tax Filers

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has introduced a comprehensive mechanism for blocking and unblocking…

2 hours ago

Trump’s Influence Fuels Bitcoin to Cross $100,000

Bitcoin broke the $100,000 mark for the first time on Thursday, driven by Trump's crypto-friendly…

2 hours ago

PSX Hits New Heights, Surges by 1,800 Points to Cross 97,000

On Thursday, the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) 100 Index surged by 1,781.94 points, or 1.86%,…

3 hours ago

Pakistan’s IT Minister Defends Internet Restrictions: Here’s All We Know!

Shaza Fatima Khawaja, Minister of State for IT and Telecom, made it clear on Thursday…

4 hours ago

PayPal Resolves Global Outage Impacting Thousands

PayPal, the global payment processing company, announced on Friday that it had successfully resolved a…

4 hours ago