The network found a base containing 419 million Facebook users

The cybersecurity expert Sanjam Jane found an unprotected server on the network, on which telephone numbers tied to the accounts of users of the Facebook social network. Techcrunch writes about this, clarifying that a total of more than 419 million records were contained in the bases on the server.

Due to the lack of protection in the form of a password, anyone could get access to the server. Each of the records in the databases stored on it contained an identifier of the Facebook account and the phone number tied to the account. 133 million records contained information about the accounts of users from the United States, over 50 million - about the accounts of users from Vietnam, and 18 million on the accounts of British users. Also in the bases there were numbers tied to users accounts from other countries. Some records contained not only the identifier and phone number, but also the user name.

Journalists managed to confirm the authenticity of several numbers from the leaked bases using the password discharge function on Facebook by phone number. At the same time, the publication of TechCrunch notes that Facebook banned access to user phone numbers more than a year ago, but the latest records were made in the detected databases in August of this year.

“This is an old database. It seems that this leak happened before last year's changes when we excluded the opportunity to add friends by phone number. Now the data has already been deleted, and we have not found evidence that some of these accounts have been hacked,” said Facebook by Jay Nankerrow.

Facebook has not been found to find the owner of the server with users, and the journalists turned to the hosting provider who turned off access to the server.

Phone numbers with reference to Facebook profiles may be useful for attackers. For example, users can become victims of spam calls, as well as attacks with the interception of SIM cards-hackers can obtain control over the number and lose passwords in many services and social networks, writes TJ .

Note, this is far from the first case of the mass leakage of Facebook users. So, at the end of July, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) officially announced the conclusion of an agreement with Facebook, in which the company will be fined $ 5 billion. This fine was a punishment for a leakage of data from tens of millions of users, which became known last year. Then the information collected using the reference application was at the disposal of the British company Cambridge Analytica, and it is possible that the data was used during the pre-election campaign of Donald Trump. The penalty should also punish Facebook and for the series of smaller leaks that occurred after the scandal with Cambridge Analytica.