Data stolen from one billion Facebook users

Over a billion Facebook users were the victims of the theft of private information in their accounts, in one of the largest data breaches in the history of social networks.

A cyber offender who uses the Bytebreaker alias claims that he has extracted 1.2 billion Facebook records and now sells the data on the Dark Web.

Extraction of information, or web scraping involves the use of automatic tools to collect large amounts of data on websites, similar to copying and sticking large-scale information.

Cybernews cyber security researchers have revealed that stolen data include names, user IDs, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, birth data and location information, such as city, state and country.

The investigation say that Bytebreaker has exploited an error in a particular Facebook tool designed to allow applications or programs to access the user data.

If it is checked, Bytebreaker’s discovery would be the largest incident to extract information from a social media platform.

Officials urge all Facebook users to change their passwords, freeze their credit and activate fraud alerts in their bank accounts.

They warn that the bytebreaker data set contains sufficient information for cyber criminals to open credit cards on behalf of victims or access their financial accounts.

« Data scraping using functions meant to help people violate our terms and conditions. We have teams throughout the company that work to detect and stop these behaviors, » Meta wrote in a statement after the 2021 data breach.

Meta told the Daily Mail that their position on this issue has not changed and the company strongly believes that no new data from Facebook have been taken.

In addition to changing the email password and blocking the credit, specialists recommend that you consider updating passwords for accounts that use the same email address or phone number that could have been stolen from Facebook.

You can also activate two-factors authentication, which adds an additional step to authentications, such as a code sent on the phone or email, which makes hackers’ access to your account, even if they have your password.