Security expert Alon Gal reports that the personal data of 533m Facebook users was dropped on the Internet. Some will loathe the fact that the phone numbers associated with their accounts were released for all to see, for the low, low price of free. Others, will likely be more irritated by the fact that they paid for access to the a lot of the same data, as reported by Motherboard, earlier this year.
Facebook's take is that the data got leaked and anyone savvy enough to find it can now get their rat claws on it for free. But, it's cool as the leak actually occurred waaaaaay back in 2019 (remember holding hands? Standing next to someone in a public bathroom without having a panic attack?) So, you know… yeah.
Troy Hunt, the creator of the Have I Been Pwned database, said on Saturday that "I haven't seen anything yet to suggest this breach isn't legit." In the data, he found only about 2.5 million unique email addresses (which is still a lot!), but apparently, "the greatest impact here is the phone numbers."
Hunt, who does not want you to be pwned, has already loaded the snatched Facebook data into Have I Been Pwned. However, he's still weighing whether or not to make the phone numbers searchable, as a service to those who may have been caught up in the data breach. So, you may soon be able to see whether you've been pwned.
