Netease Technology News, April 3 news, local time on Saturday, the personal privacy data of more than 500 million users of the American social media company Facebook was released on the Internet for free.

According to the news site Business Insider (Business Insider) reported that on a low-level hacker forum on Saturday local time, someone posted the personal privacy information of 533 million Facebook users for free, including phone numbers, Facebook login IDs, full names, addresses, and births. Date, resume, email address, etc. The published personal privacy information data involved 533 million Facebook users from 106 countries, including 32 million American users, 11 million British users, and 6 million Indian users.

On Saturday, local time, Alon Gal, the chief technology officer of Hudson Rock, an intelligence company that tracks and studies cybercrime behavior, first saw the data leaked online. A Facebook spokesperson told the "Business Insider" website that these data leaks were caused by a loophole, but the company has patched this loophole in 2019.

Gal said that the data stolen two years ago may have provided valuable information to cybercriminals, allowing cybercriminals to use this personal information to carry out illegal fraud.

"Business Insider" compared several leaked user ID information with real Facebook users and confirmed that the leaked information is true. In addition, "Business Insider" also tested the Facebook user password reset function on leaked user email addresses or phone numbers, and the results were all successful.

Gal told the "Business Insider" website that the personal information that was released on the Internet for free this time will definitely cause criminals to use the data to further engage in cyber attacks or hacking.

In fact, Gal discovered such a data breach as early as January this year. In the same hacker forum at that time, a user posted an automated robot program that could provide the phone numbers of hundreds of millions of Facebook users if paid. After being verified by someone, the user information provided by the robot program is true and correct.

But now, all these data have been published on the hacker forum and can be viewed for free.

This is not the first time that the personal information of Facebook users leaked. Previously, Facebook had shared 80 million user data with Cambridge Analytica, which used the data for political advertising in the 2016 U.S. election, a serious violation of Facebook’s terms of service.

Gal said that Facebook may be trapped in unpredictable security vulnerabilities on its platform, and user data is leaked due to such security vulnerabilities, but Facebook can notify users in time to allow users to be exposed to illegal phishing or fraud against personal data. Stay alert. (Tianmen Mountain)

Source: NetEase Technology Report, translated by Google Translate