More than 26.7 million Facebook users' data leaked

(PTI) New Delhi, Ta. December 21, 2019, Saturday

Facebook is once again surrounded by questions about the privacy of its users. Security researcher Bob Diachenko has found data on 267 million (26.7 million) Facebook users from an unsecured database.

Reportedly, the user ID, phone number, name, etc. of 26.7 million users of Facebook have been made public online. The most serious problem is that the server where this data is kept is not secure or password protected.

This database is so weak that it can be accessed without any password or authentication. According to the researchers, this data of Facebook is being collected by illegal scraping operations or by abusing the Facebook API.

Facebook has expressed the possibility of this data dating back a few years as they have recently made changes to protect user details. At the same time, Facebook had confirmed that it was investigating the matter.

Even if Facebook's argument is true, common user privacy can be compromised. According to Bob Diachenko, who discovered the database, the data was publicized two weeks ago and was also reported to a service provider managing the IP address of that server.

According to researchers, Facebook's user data has been uploaded to a hacker forum with a download link in place. It is currently unclear whether Facebook data may be misused. Usually after this type of data is leaked, hackers collect data from the dark web. It is then damaged by accessing the user's account.