Over the weekend it was confirmed that over half a billion Facebook users had had their account details leaked online. With the details of 533 million Facebook accounts leaked, the leak affects roughly one in every five Facebook users. That means there’s about a 20% chance a Facebook user has had their details leaked. The leaked data is believed to have been scraped by hackers in 2019 and only posted as a database online recently—free to all who want to access it. The leaked data includes the following information about affected Facebook users:
- Phone numbers
- Facebook ID
- Full name
- Location
- Birthdate
- The content of their Facebook bio
- Email address (in some cases)
It was also revealed over the weekend that among the leaked data is Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s information, as well as the info of Facebook cofounders Chris Hughes and Dustin Moskovitz. Right now there is no dedicated tool available to find out if your Facebook information was included in the leak, but there is a roundabout way to check if it was. Here’s how to check if your data was among the 533 million leaked accounts:
- Go to HaveIBeenPwned.com.
- Enter the email address that you use for your Facebook account.
- HaveIBeenPwned will then tell you if that email address is included in any data breaches. You can also sign up for automatic notifications when the email has been found in a new data breach.
However, even if your email does not show up in any breaches, it’s a good thing to change your Facebook password now and be sure to enable two-factor authentication (2FA). Though passwords are not believed to be included in the Facebook leak, in some cases hackers will have the email address associated with those Facebook accounts. They can then easily use tools to try commonly-used passwords in combination with the email address to break into your Facebook account. That’s why a strong, unique password comprised of completely random alphanumerics and enabling 2FA on your account is essential.
We’ve reached out to Facebook to get their comments on the leak and will update this post if we hear back.
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