Facebook, the data of 267 million users exposed online for 2 weeks

the SAN FRANCISCO - There is a database popped up on the web that is unsettling, not just Facebook. Contains the names and phone numbers of more than 267 million users of the social the most populated in the world with its 2.2 billion subscribers. the problem is that this huge amount of data you could download freely. As they have done the same technicians of Facebook as a forum of hackers, according to a blog of the company Comparitech - leads straight to a group of cyber criminals. "We are investigating this issue, but we believe that it is data most likely obtained the first of the changes that we have made in recent years to better protect the information of the people," said a spokesman for the social to the agency France Press.

Statements that allow you to pull only a half a sigh of relief as the old data, many may no longer be updated. But the assurances end up here. It remains to be seen how long they have been available online (it seems not more than two weeks), and, most of all, who has downloaded them onto. All data - mainly of members of the americans, it seems - that could be used for phishing scams, or other criminal acts in the network. According to reports Comparitech, was the researcher on the security Bob Diachenko to locate the database, a document which was accessible on the forum of hackers - without password, or any other form of authentication - and contained the names of the users of Facebook user IDS and phone numbers. Immediately this discovery was reported to the site and the database is already yesterday - Thursday - was no longer online. But as the criminals managed to get hold of this huge amount of data? Very likely - the researchers suggest - with an action (illegal, of course) of web scraping, or by extracting data from a site with ad hoc software. Another way to take possession of this database may have been the one of hacking the API of Facebook.

it is Not the first time that the data of millions of users on Facebook are disseminated in the network. Last September, a security researcher has discovered a database yet this is the greatest: 419 million data connected to the account Facebook. A year ago, a case of hacking has revealed 29 million users, while a programming error has exhibited 540 million data Facebook. Not only that, the same social, has investigated internally on its employees of Facebook who may have had access to 200-600 million plaintext passwords of the users. None intentionally, it seems from the conclusions. As it is, we are in front of a strip of the horror if you talk about privacy.

it is Certain that the revelation of this "data breach" of Facebook comes in the most complicated period of the social, even as it strives to rebuild the confidence of its users and to reassure them of the degree of protection of their information by strengthening the protections. Just at the beginning of this month, the authority to privacy, united states month have confirmed that the consulting company of british Cambridge Analytica - at the center of a sensational scandal involving the hijacking of the data Facebook has tricked users of the social network, about how he collected and managed their personal information.

The Federal Trade Commission has concluded its inquiry - started in march 2018 - saying that the now-defunct consulting company policy "has engaged in deceptive practices to collect personal information from tens of millions of users of Facebook for the profiling and the targeting of voters". The FTC added that the british company, engaged in the presidential campaign of Donald Trump 2016, has made statements "false and misleading" when he offered to users of Facebook, a "quiz personality" - declaring that he would not have downloaded the names, or any identifiable personal information. The case had created a real earthquake on the ground already little stable of data protection when it was made known that Cambridge Analytica has been able to create psychological profiles by using the data of million users of Facebook.

The case, investigated the same social in blue, and have discovered that some of the data of 87 million users in the United States and some other countries were compromised by the british company, reiterating that these practices were in breach of the terms of service of the social network. Facebook has then had to pay for a criminal record $ 5 billion - for the mismanagement of private data of their users - at the beginning of this year because of an agreement with the regulatory authority.

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