New post Need visibility? Apply for a FREE post for your Startup.  Apply Here

MobileNews

Facebook Data Breach: How To Check If Your Data Was Leaked

1 Mins read

Facebook has confirmed that a load of personal information was harvested from its servers, and uploaded freely to the internet, due to a feature gone wrong.

The data, according to the social media giant, was not stolen in a hack but through malicious use of the feature that allows users to import their contacts.

The “contact importer” feature was intended to allow people to upload their contacts from their phone to Facebook, and find people they might know.

However, malicious actors have succeeded in using it to scrape the personal information of about 535 million users on the platform, including that of the CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.

Although, Facebook said the error that made the leak possible has been fixed since September, 2019; but over the weekend, it became clear that the data had made its way to the public, greatly increasing the risk that anyone involved in it might face.

Facebook explained that the data was not stolen from Facebook directly, but instead “scraped”, using automated software to gather information that was later made public.

This is another example of the ongoing, adversarial relationship technology companies have with fraudsters who intentionally break platform policies to scrape internet services. As a result of the action we took, we are confident that the specific issue that allowed them to scrape this data in 2019 no longer exists,” Facebook said

Facebook however, added that the information “did not include financial information, health information or passwords”.

Read also: Twitter Hack: Teenage Mastermind Sentenced To Three Years in Prison

How to check if your data was among the leak

HaveIBeenPwned is a website that allows Internet users to check whether their personal data has been compromised by data breaches.

In this context, you can search through email addresses and phone numbers to check if your data is among those in the massive Facebook breach, or any other breaches.

Don’t miss any tech news ever!

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

895 posts

About author
When I'm not reading about tech, I'm writing about it, or thinking about the next weird food combinations to try. I do all these with my headphones plugged in, and a sticky note on my computer with the words: "The galaxy needs saving, Star Lord."
Articles
Related posts
ArticleMobileRandom

Smartphones That Rival The iPhone 16 Pro

1 Mins read
The rivalry between smartphones seems unending; especially the battle for supremacy between iOS and Android devices. The iPhone 16 Pro the latest…
News

Hackers steal $16.8m from Uganda's Central Bank

1 Mins read
Uganda’s Central Bank has become the latest victim of cyber attack. The bank fell to a sophisticated cyber attack by hackers known…
News

Crypto entrepreneur eats popular $6.2m banana artwork

1 Mins read
Interesting things keep happening all around the world, and one of them involves a cryptocurrency entrepreneur, Justin Sun, who transformed an iconic…
Newsletter Subscription

🤞 Don’t miss any update!

We don’t spam! Read more in our privacy policy

Join our Telegram channel here - t.me/TechpadiAfrica

Leave a Reply