Researchers at the cybersecurity firm UpGuard on Wednesday said they had discovered the existence of two datasets together containing the personal data of hundreds of millions of Facebook users. Both were left publicly accessible.
In a blog post, UpGuard connected one of the leaky databases to a Mexico-based media company called Cultura Colectiva. The data set reportedly contains over 146 GB of data, which amounts to over 540 million Facebook user records, including comments, likes, reactions, account names, Facebook user IDs, and more.
A second leak, UpGuard said, was connected to a Facebook-integrated app called “At the pool” and had exposed roughly 22,000 passwords. “The passwords are presumably for the ‘At the Pool’ app rather than for the user’s Facebook account, but would put users at risk who have reused the same password across accounts,” the firm said. The database also contained data on users’ friends, likes, groups, and locations where they had checked in, said UpGuard.
Both datasets were stored in unsecured Amazon S3 buckets and could be accessed by virtually anyone. Neither was password protected. The buckets have since been secured or taken offline.
Source: 540 Million Facebook User Records Exposed Online, Plus Passwords, Comments, and More
Robin Edgar
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