{"id":270,"date":"2021-04-14T16:39:05","date_gmt":"2021-04-14T20:39:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/?p=270"},"modified":"2021-04-14T16:49:42","modified_gmt":"2021-04-14T20:49:42","slug":"personal-data-of-533-million-facebook-users-posted-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/2021\/04\/14\/personal-data-of-533-million-facebook-users-posted-online\/","title":{"rendered":"Personal data of 533 million Facebook users posted online"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Article by Adrian Ma <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/transcosmos.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/shutterstock_1018754938.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><figcaption>Facebook logo with lock. (Transcosmos Information Systems)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>More than 533 million Facebook users had their personal information posted on a hacking forum website last week, which has reignited debate about the social media giant\u2019s cybersecurity vulnerabilities.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The exposed data, which includes phone numbers, email addresses and locations, is from a massive data breach at Facebook that took place in 2019. At the time, the company identified the security error and fixed it. But someone made a copy of that personal information and posted the dataset on the hacking website, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/stolen-data-of-533-million-facebook-users-leaked-online-2021-4\">Business Insider reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"986\" height=\"556\" src=\"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/120\/2021\/04\/Screen-Shot-2021-04-14-at-3.21.09-PM-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-274\" srcset=\"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/120\/2021\/04\/Screen-Shot-2021-04-14-at-3.21.09-PM-1.png 986w, https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/120\/2021\/04\/Screen-Shot-2021-04-14-at-3.21.09-PM-1-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/120\/2021\/04\/Screen-Shot-2021-04-14-at-3.21.09-PM-1-768x433.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 986px) 100vw, 986px\" \/><figcaption>Facebook co-founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, standing before the US Senate in 2018 to address concerns over the selling of user information for political advertising. (Andrew Harnik\/AP\/Rex\/Shutterstoc) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The data is a couple of years old and many users may have updated their password and personal details since then. But there are concerns that cybercriminals could use pieces of someone\u2019s personal information to impersonate them or scam them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;A database of that size containing the private information such as phone numbers of a lot of Facebook&#8217;s users would certainly lead to bad actors taking advantage of the data to perform social-engineering attacks [or] hacking attempts,&#8221; said Alon Gal, the chief technology officer of the cybercrime intelligence company Hudson Rock.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">All 533,000,000 Facebook records were just leaked for free.<br><br>This means that if you have a Facebook account, it is extremely likely the phone number used for the account was leaked.<br><br>I have yet to see Facebook acknowledging this absolute negligence of your data. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ysGCPZm5U3\">https:\/\/t.co\/ysGCPZm5U3<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/nM0Fu4GDY8\">pic.twitter.com\/nM0Fu4GDY8<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Alon Gal (Under the Breach) (@UnderTheBreach) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/UnderTheBreach\/status\/1378314424239460352?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 3, 2021<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><figcaption>Alon Gal explains how phone numbers linked to Facebook accounts led to the leaking of personal information. Over 500 million users, spanning over 105 countries, have experienced personal data breaches.  <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Identity theft is a growing concern around the world, including Canada. Incidents of identity theft have more than quintupled since 2010, according to data <a href=\"https:\/\/www150.statcan.gc.ca\/t1\/tbl1\/en\/tv.action?pid=3510017701\">from Statistics Canada.&nbsp;<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Facebook, the most popular social media network in the world with more than 2.7 billion active monthly users, has come under fire in recent years for a series of issues involving personal information and privacy. In 2013, the company sold the personal information of up to 87 million users to British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to help inform their political advertising strategies. In May 2018, a glitch in the platform caused the private posts of 14 million users to be made public without their knowledge or consent. In September 2018, another Facebook bug saw hackers gain access to the full profiles of at least 50 million users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"width: 100%;\"><div style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 200.00%; padding-top: 0; height: 0;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"800\" height=\"1600\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;\" src=\"https:\/\/view.genial.ly\/6075b3b58b95e60dc61c93ea\" type=\"text\/html\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" scrolling=\"yes\" allownetworking=\"all\"><\/iframe> <\/div> <\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-small-font-size\">Interactive timeline of company data breaches from 2013 to 2020. (Timeline by Adrian Ma) <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite these controversies and concerns, Facebook continues to grow its user base and is widely expected to reach three billion active users \u2014 the first social media company in history to hit this milestone \u2014 sometime in the next two years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Article by Adrian Ma More than 533 million Facebook users had their personal information posted on a hacking forum website last week, which has reignited debate about the social media giant\u2019s cybersecurity vulnerabilities.&nbsp; The exposed data, which includes phone numbers, email addresses and locations, is from a massive data breach at Facebook that took place [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":461,"featured_media":279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[95,96,97],"class_list":["post-270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech","tag-cybersecurity-2","tag-facebook-2","tag-usersaftey-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/461"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}