Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp were all down for 7 hours worldwide meanwhile unknown hackers allegedly stole 1.5 billion Facebook users’ data and sold it on the dark web, the Russian Privacy Affairs agency confirmed in its recent findings. The data includes user names, email addresses, addresses, locations, and phone numbers, as per RPA's findings.
“It’s the biggest and most significant Facebook data dump to date– about three times greater than the April leak of 533 million phone numbers,” the publication noted.
However, while responding to the security incident, Facebook siad that “this was old data and the security vulnerability responsible had been patched back in 2019”.
At present, it is yet to be confirmed if the RPA's findings are legitimate or not. However, some people reported that they tried to buy Facebook users’ data. However, after paying $5,000 amount to the hackers in exchange for data, the buyers got nothing, hence the probability of a scam underneath is on the cards.
The fact that the buyers who paid the hackers in an attempt to buy the stolen data got nothing could be proof that the group's claims of having stolen data are baseless. However, security experts still suggest all Facebook users stay vigilant for unusual activities on their accounts.
At a Senate subcommittee hearing with a Facebook whistle-blower on Tuesday, Senator Marsha Blackburn from Tennessee said, “News broke yesterday that the private data of over 1.5 billion — that’s right, 1.5 billion — Facebook users are being sold on a hacking forum.” “That’s its biggest data breach to date,” the subcommittee’s ranking Republican member further added.
Although many believe that data has been breached, there is no solid proof of it yet. Aric Toler, a researcher with Bellingcat, an investigative journalism group, made a statement and added that someone claimed to have paid for the hacked data and they found out that it was a scam so it has to be confirmed as of yet.
