Mediacom world news portal
Social networking website Facebook just suffered one of its largest data breaches yet, with over 267 million users affected. According to Notebook Check, Facebook users’ IDs, phone numbers, and names were exposed to an online database. Though the basic information might not seem like that big a deal, the breach means that millions of Americans will likely become the targets of spam and phishing campaigns over the next few months.
The massive breach was discovered after security researcher Bob Diachenko came across the database containing millions of names and phone numbers on a website known as Elasticsearch. The website is known to hackers and other unethical web users, and has been the subject of controversy before.
The hacked information was first made public on December 9. By December 12, it was made available in downloadable form on a hacker forum. Diachenko uncovered the breach two days after that, on December 14, and alerted authorities. It has since been taken down.