A new scandal for Facebook was triggered in late 2020 after it was revealed that sensitive data from around 533 million users was available on a dark web hacking forum. The leak reportedly includes personal details such as full names, phone numbers, email addresses, and usernames.
While the social media security teams argue that this leak involves only outdated information, cybersecurity experts believe this is not a valid argument for dismissing the importance of the incident.
In addition, the incident was aggravated after a Telegram user created a bot that allowed users to query the compromised database by paying a little fee.
Catalin Climpanu, researcher at The Report, also mentioned that the database is available in at least 100 different countries, although interested users must pay to access this information.
As users can see, leaking personal data from social media platforms remains a serious problem for any user, so it’s important for users to learn how to identify if their data has been compromised. To do this, TheNextWeb specialists developed a solution that will allow any user to check if their Facebook account has been compromised.
How to check if your Facebook information has been exposed
- Log in haveibeenpwned.com, either from your smartphone or desktop computer. This is a platform developed specifically to help users who have been victims of data breaches.
- Enter the email address you want to verify in the search section.
- In case your email address has been exposed in a security incident, you will receive a warning to reset your password and enable additional authentication mechanisms. By scrolling down the website, compromised account owners can find more information about incidents in which this data has been involved
Troy Hunt, founder and principal maintainer of Have I Been Pwned, recently mentioned considering uploading to the platform all the phone numbers exposed during this incident, although this may change due to policies for the use of sensitive information in certain countries.
The main recommendation in these cases is password reset, although Have I Been Pwned also includes a tool to check if users’ security words are compromised.
To learn more about information security risks, malware variants, vulnerabilities and information technologies, feel free to access the International Institute of Cyber Security (IICS) websites.
He is a cyber security and malware researcher. He studied Computer Science and started working as a cyber security analyst in 2006. He is actively working as an cyber security investigator. He also worked for different security companies. His everyday job includes researching about new cyber security incidents. Also he has deep level of knowledge in enterprise security implementation.