Information on 533 million Facebook users is now available online for free after a breach

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In 2019, a Facebook breach resulted in hundreds of millions of Facebook users having their data posted online. The information included email addresses, phone numbers, and more. At the time, the website hosting the information was pulled, but now it seems it is back.

According to AP and Alon Gal, CTO of cybercrime intelligence firm Hudson Rock, that information helps compile over 500 million Facebook user records. Back in January, the information was available through an automated bot that would provide information on a user in exchange for a fee. Now, the entire database is available online, for free.

Thankfully, passwords are not included in the data breach, but for many of the 533 million Facebook users, information like full name, email, and location are all available through the breach.

Gal tells Business Insider, “A database of that size containing the private information such as phone numbers of a lot of Facebook’s users would certainly lead to bad actors taking advantage of the data to perform social engineering attacks [or] hacking attempts.”

Gal goes on to BI that, quite frankly, there’s not much Facebook can do about it at this point. The information is out there and readily available. The vulnerability that allowed the breach in 2019 was patched promptly and can no longer be used to steal user data.

If you are interested in seeing if your account was part of the data breach, here’s how to check.

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