Facebook users’ data exposed in another security lapse
WASHINGTON: Contact numbers linked to more than 400 million Facebook accounts were listed online in the latest privacy lapse for the social media giant, US media reported Wednesday.
The server exposed around 419 million of the stored records of users across several databases, including 133 million US accounts, more than 50 million in Vietnam, and 18 million in Britain, according to technology news site TechCrunch.
The databases listed Facebook user IDs, unique digits attached to each account, the profiles’ contact numbers, as well as the gender listed by some accounts and their geographical locations, technology website TechCrunch reported.
The server was not protected by a password. It was open for any intrusion until Wednesday, when Techcrunch contacted the website.
Facebook confirmed parts of the report but downplayed the extent of the exposure, saying that the number of accounts so far confirmed was around half of the reported 419 million.
It added that many of the entries were duplicates and that the data was old.
“The dataset has been taken down and we have seen no evidence that Facebook accounts were compromised,” a Facebook spokesperson told AFP.
