Facebook Users’ Data Breached, How to Track if You’re Affected
The personal information millions of Facebook users was recently leaked. Maybe you didn't know and, worse, maybe you don't know how to check if you've been affected.
According to CNN.com, Facebook says the breach, which revealed full names, birthdays, phone numbers, and even locations of 30 million accounts, is the result of a problem the company had back in 2019.
But, still, even two years old, that kind of information can be very valuable to hackers and the ill-intentioned.
Now, the leak reportedly only affects Facebook users who have an email included in their account profile -- that's more than 2.5 million people.
Troy Hunt, the creator of the website haveibeenpwned.com (where you can check if your email or phone has been the victim of a date breach), states, "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."
If you're concerned that your personal data is now out there floating around thanks to the Facebook breach, you can visit haveibeenpwned.com and see if your email or phone number comes up.
The website found that the email I have attached to my personal Facebook account has been exposed, so I'm a bit unnerved. It also told me that my account info has gone public to business like the party planning website evite, and a gaming development company called Zynga.
haveibeenpwned.com also offers some suggestions on how to protect your data, including changing your password and subscribing for notifications about future breaches.
To get the full scope of the recent Facebook data breach, visit CNN.com. Troy Hunt also runs a very informative Twitter.
SOURCES: CNN.com; haveibeenpwned.com
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