Facebook suffered from a massive breach that exposed more than half a billion users from more than 100 countries across the globe. Security analysts said that the issue shows that the social media giant's security systems are not efficient when it comes to protecting its users' sensitive info.
In this photo illustration the Social networking site Facebook is reflected in the eye of a man on March 25, 2009 in London, England. The British government has made proposals which would force Social networking websites such as Facebook to pass on details of users, friends and contacts to help fight terrorism.
The Conversation explained that cybercriminals and other malicious hackers were able to publish more than 500 million Facebook user details on an underground website.
However, security experts haven't identified the source of the massive data breach as of the moment.
Although this is the case, they explained that user data were leaked because of the misuse of legitimate functions in the Facebook systems. They added that this could happen when hackers, and other online attackers take advantage of a website's legit feature to acquire users' info.
This issue also happened with PayID way back in 2019.
What Facebook leaked data contains
Haveibeenpwned, a website that allows people to check if their accounts were hacked, claimed that most of the leaked records contain genders and names of the users. Aside from these, the leaked data could also contain location, relationship status, date of birth, and user's employers.
In this photo illustration the Social networking site Facebook is displayed on a laptop screen on March 25, 2009 in London, England. The British government has made proposals which would force Social networking websites such as Facebook to pass on details of users, friends and contacts to help fight terrorism.
However, the online site added that only a small proportion of the leaked files contained valid email addresses, which is about 2.5 million. This is important since a user's data is only important if it includes their legitimate email address.
Although this is the case, the leaked Facebook accounts could still be used to enhance SMS-based spam and phishing attacks.
"For a targeted attack where you know someone's name and country, it's great for mobile phone lookup. Much harder to do en masse as there's no reliable key; I couldn't take a big list of emails and resolve them to phone numbers as email is rare in the data," said Troy Hunt, a web security expert.
How to create a perfect password for FB
Creating an efficient password for your Facebook account is easier than you think. Here are some methods you can use, as provided by PC World:
- Make your password as long as possible.
- Don't use the same password on various accounts. Always use a unique one for each of them.
- Use a password that even you find it hard to remember. However, you must use a password manager to store it.
- Try using foreign languages for your password.
- Use phrases or unfamiliar words from poems and history books.
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Related Article: Facebook Hacking Affects 533M Users After Hacker Posts their Personal Information Online
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Written by: Giuliano de Leon
