TechCrunch is reporting Huge database of Facebook users’ phone numbers found online. Here’s the news brief (we’ve added the bold typeface for emphasis):
Hundreds of millions of phone numbers linked to Facebook accounts have been found online. The exposed server contained over 419 million records over several databases on users across geographies, including 133 million records on US-based Facebook users, 18 million records of users in the UK and another with more than 50 million records on users in Vietnam. But because the server wasn’t protected with a password, anyone could find and access the database.
Each record contained a user’s unique Facebook ID and the phone number listed on the account. A user’s Facebook ID is typically a long, unique and public number associated with their account, which can be easily used to discern an account’s username. But phone numbers have not been public in more than a year since Facebook restricted access to users’ phone numbers.
TechCrunch verified a number of records in the database by matching a known Facebook user’s phone number against their listed Facebook ID. We also checked other records by matching phone numbers against Facebook’s own password reset feature, which can be used to partially reveal a user’s phone number linked to their account. Some of the records also had the user’s name, gender, and location by country.
Hundreds of millions of Facebook users' phone numbers have been found in an unprotected online database. https://t.co/vxcP5KhGqq
— WRTV Indianapolis (@wrtv) September 5, 2019
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