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The site TechCrunch reveals this Thursday, September 5 that data on the phones of more than 400 million Facebook users found themselves in the wild.
Facebook is struggling to effectively protect the personal data of its users. A little more than a month ago, the US Communications Regulatory Authority had condemned the social network to more than 5 billion fine for its failures in this area.
The new leak of data revealed this Thursday by the US news site TechCrunch ( article in English ) mainly concerns the United States, Southeast Asia and the United Kingdom. And it is more than consistent: 419 million accounts of the social network are concerned. The case is all the more serious as it is a real lack of rigor that is involved.
Facebook stored on a server several databases that linked their phone number to users of the network. It did not take an army of cybercriminals to get access; it was just enough to connect to this server. No need for a password: the company simply forgot to put one.
Of course, she tries to minimize the case: it was old data, which means that it can not be used to compromise the security of user accounts. But this dilettantism can still have serious consequences.
More than 400 million phone numbers in the wild, associated with an identity, promise many unsolicited phone calls or more unpleasant things like SIM card transfers. The boss of Twitter itself was victim this summer when pirates were able to take possession of his account.