If you receive an email, call, or text from someone claiming to be from Facebook, and offering assistance or information about the breach, be very careful.
#FACEBOOK PRIVACY BREACH HOW TO#
PIRG) maintains a step-by-step guide that shows how to do this. Facebook users in the United States may also want to consider putting a freeze on their credit files as a preventative measure.
If you’re not sure what to look for, review the basics of what identity theft is, and of how to prevent it. Ask for a case ID or reference number, and then call whatever organization the caller says they’re from - but at a number that you’ve looked up independently.īe on the lookout for identity theft. If you receive an unsolicited call, don’t give the caller any sensitive information over the phone.
#FACEBOOK PRIVACY BREACH PASSWORD#
If you’ve confirmed that your email address was one of those exposed in this breach, then change your password for that account as well, and enable 2FA for additional security.įor the foreseeable future, be extra vigilant when it comes to phone scams. To safeguard against a possible hack of your Facebook account, change the password for your account and enable two-factor authentication (2FA). In the aftermath of such a large breach, it’s only natural to wonder if you’re truly safe … and how you can protect yourself. Hunt has also added support for phone number search to the website so to see if your phone number was leaked, enter the number (using the international format) into the same search field on the HIBP main page. It just means that your email address wasn’t part of the breach. Thus, if you don’t see yourself in the HIBP results after entering your email, it doesn’t mean that you’re safe. However, bear in mind that most of the Facebook accounts in this breach didn’t have the associated email addresses exposed. To check if the email associated with your Facebook account was exposed, you can use Troy Hunt’s data breach aggregation site Have I Been Pwned (HIBP). How to check if your account was affected
They offer people help, information, or financial compensation in an attempt to steal sensitive data or login credentials. After a big data breach, hackers often send out fake emails in which they impersonate the company that suffered the breach. Lastly, the fact that this incident is so high profile might spawn a wave of “Facebook data breach” phishing emails. According to data breach expert Troy Hunt, those phone numbers could be extremely useful to scammers and spammers:įor a targeted attack where you know someone’s name and country, it’s great for mobile phone lookup … for spam based on using phone number alone, it’s gold. But the exposed telephone numbers are another matter. In terms of the threat from phishing attacks, it seems that relatively few email addresses were leaked. If successful, this could lead to further compromise, or be used to send out scam messages to contacts. In addition, the combination of Facebook IDs and associated email addresses could result in bad guys attempting to hack into people’s Facebook accounts directly. Unfortunately, the answer is a clear yes.įor one thing, the leaked data contains exactly the sort of personally identifiable information that bad actors like to use in social engineering attacks, or to perpetrate identity theft. The Facebook data breach is troubling from a privacy standpoint. Yet while the breach may be several years old, the fact that it’s freely available online is new - which is why this story is causing so much concern. Back in 2019, a vulnerability (since patched) allowed bad actors to scrape vast amounts of personal data from Facebook accounts. The leaked data includes over 30 million users in the United States alone.Ī Facebook spokesperson told reporters that the massive trove of data is from a 2019 breach.
The affected accounts appear to come from all over the world. The leaked data contains a wide range of personally identifiable information, including: On April 3, Alon Gal, CTO of the cybersecurity firm Hudson Rock, revealed that personal data from over 500 million Facebook accounts was being shared on a public hacking forum. Fast facts about the Facebook data breach We’ll also show you how to keep yourself safe in the weeks and months ahead. In this article, we’ll tell you about the breach, and explain why it matters from a security standpoint. According to security researchers, the leaked data is now being shared freely online. Facebook data breach exposes details of 500 million usersĪ massive data breach has exposed the personal information of over 500 million Facebook users.
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