Personal information, phone numbers of over 553 million FB users leaked online: Report

The personal details of several Facebook users were recently hacked by "a user in a low-level hacking forum" on Saturday. According to the American cybercrime intelligence firm— Hudson Rock which first reported the issue, "personal information of over 553 million FB users from 106 countries has been leaked online."
 
The CTO of the cybercrime intelligence firm, Alon Gal was quoted by a leading US news portal as saying "This is a massive database that the hackers have got access to. A database of such a size with private information such as phone numbers of several FB users is likely to benefit hackers who would then perform social engineering attacks". This data that has been posted on various social media platforms including Twitter and Facebook, can be used by hackers across the world to impersonate an individual or scam them into sharing their login credentials.
 
32 million FB users from the US, 11mn users from the UK, and 6mn users from India on the list

Details like Facebook IDs, full names, birthdates, bios, and email addresses of 32 million FB users from the US, 11 million users from the UK and 6 million users from India, are also included in the list of 553 million accounts that have been hacked. While  Facebook is yet to make a comment on the development, this is the second such incident in less than a year, where details of FB users were hacked.

 
Last year in September 2019, reports emerged from across the world revealing the presence of a server on Facebook that had over 400 million records of users with the database including their personal information. Facebook since then restricted access to the phone numbers of users, however, the recent hacking attempt by unknown groups/individuals can disclose the phone numbers of any user from the list of 553 million FB users.
 
Gal expressing grave concern over the matter, said "When people sign up to a reputable company like Facebook, they trust them with their data, and Facebook is supposed to treat this information with the utmost respect. This attempt to leak information of so many FB users online is a huge breach of trust and must be handled accordingly."