Massive record leak: How to check if your Facebook account was breached?

Hundreds of millions of Facebook records including the personal information of users have been leaked by hackers in a major setback to the social media giant which was revealed by cybersecurity experts.

The hackers have published full names, birthdays, phone numbers and their location of 533 million Facebook users on April 3, however, Facebook said the massive leak stems from an issue in 2019, which has since been fixed.

On April 4, a cyber researcher Dave Walker tweeted, “Regarding the #FacebookLeak, of the 533M people in the leak – the irony is that Mark Zuckerberg is regrettably included in the leak as well.” He added, “If journalists are struggling to get a statement from @facebook, maybe just give him a call, from the tel in the leak?”

Regarding the #FacebookLeak, of the 533M people in the leak – the irony is that Mark Zuckerberg is regrettably included in the leak as well.

If journalists are struggling to get a statement from @facebook, maybe just give him a call, from the tel in the leak? 📞😂@GazTheJourno pic.twitter.com/lrqlwzFMjU

— Dave Walker (@Daviey) April 3, 2021

Read: WhatsApp rival trolls Facebook CEO found using Signal app

“All 533,000,000 Facebook records were just leaked for free. This means that if you have a Facebook account, it is extremely likely the phone number used for the account was leaked. I have yet to see Facebook acknowledging this absolute negligence of your data,” 7 News quoted the tweet of Alon Gal, the co-founder of a cybercrime intelligence firm Hudson Rock.

All 533,000,000 Facebook records were just leaked for free.

This means that if you have a Facebook account, it is extremely likely the phone number used for the account was leaked.

I have yet to see Facebook acknowledging this absolute negligence of your data. https://t.co/ysGCPZm5U3 pic.twitter.com/nM0Fu4GDY8

— Alon Gal (Under the Breach) (@UnderTheBreach) April 3, 2021

How to check if your Facebook account was breached?

A third-party website, haveibeenpwned.com, has made it simple to check by inputting your email. The website will check if your email was among those stolen.

It emerged that only 2.5 million emails were found among the stolen data of 533 million Facebook accounts which indicated that a user got less than a half per cent chance of showing up on that website, even though having about a 20 per cent chance of being hacked if having a Facebook account.

Troy Hunt, the creator of the website and a security expert said on Twitter that he was examining whether to add phone numbers.

“The primary value of the data is the association of phone numbers to identities; whilst each record included phone, only 2.5 million contained an email address,” Hunt’s website said.

The records stolen during the 2019 data breach are still valuable for hackers and cybercriminals like those who engage in identity theft.