Several publications immediately reported that the phone number of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was among the data leaked to the network, which is now published on one of the hacker forums. According to The Sun, in addition to his phone number, his location, date of birth, marriage information and Facebook user ID were also disclosed.
Insider Aaron Holmes recently announced a major leak of personal data of more than 500 million Facebook users. Security researcher Dave Walker then confirmed this information, stating that, ironically, Mark Zuckerberg and other co-founders of Facebook Inc. Chris Hughes and Dustin Moskovitz were found among 533 million users whose personal information was posted on a hacker forum.
When asked by Insider, Facebook replied that this is old data, which was reported back in 2019. The vulnerability that led to the leak was patched in August 2019. The company declined to comment on reports of Mark Zuckerberg’s phone number leaked. It is noteworthy that the database is posted on the forum in the public domain, that is, everyone who has basic skills in working with databases can use this information completely free of charge.
The previous major Facebook leak involved the infamous Cambridge Analytica, which gained access to the personal data of more than 87 million users of the social network. Then the US Federal Trade Commission fined Facebook $ 5 billion as part of the settlement of a dispute over the misuse of user data.
Following the Cambridge Analytica case, the company promised to fight data breaches and take action against potential misuse of information provided by social media users. Facebook announced plans to strengthen privacy protections to prevent such abuse in the future, but judging by what happened, these measures are not effective enough.