Facebook data leak: are you affected yourself? This is how you can check it out

A huge Facebook data leak became known this week. Hackers have publicly published the phone numbers and private data of over 530 million users on the Internet. In this guide, we explain how you can check for yourself whether your data has also landed on the network.

We got up TechnikNews already about it berichtetthat user data with half a billion records has appeared in some forums. This includes the phone number, Facebook ID, full name, place of residence, previous place of residence, date of birth, email addresses, date of account creation, relationship status, employer and bio (profile description) of Facebook users, if provided. It is quite likely that you are affected. Over 1,2 million users from Austria and 6 million from Germany alone have fallen victim to the Facebook data breach.

Facebook data leak with half a billion private data: guilt is a loophole

The whole thing is due to a loophole that existed before August 2019. This enabled hackers to access the private profile data of Facebook users proeasy to read. They didn't need to hack accounts or know their passwords. Users themselves didn't do anything wrong either: Facebook was to blame here, which had a security gap in the system. The published data is as of 2019.

This is believed to have happened via the function for importing contacts to Facebook, says head Mikko Hypponen of the security company F-Secure. This allows anyone to find out whether one of their own contacts is on the service. After uploading phone numbers, Facebook is said to have spit out private data from Facebook profiles. The attackers are said to have imported various combinations of phone numbers en masse throughproand recorded the subsequent data.

However, Facebook is not interested in the data protection laws (GDPR) applicable in this country and will not inform users themselves whether their data has been tapped. A company spokesman told Reuters this today approved. According to our data protection laws, companies are obliged to notify affected users of such hacks or security gaps within a period of time.

Facebook hack: this is how you can check whether you are affected yourself

Because Facebook users so not prowill actively inform, you have to check for yourself. Either you are tech-savvy and search the leak's records for your own data, or check them in a simpler way. The website "have I been pwned?“Has already entered all of these data records and has now also implemented a query for telephone numbers. Previously, you could only check an email address for appearance in a hack, now telephone numbers are also possible as input. This must be entered in international format with the country code (+49… / + 43…).

Then you can find out whether you appear in the data yourself. In addition, you can also enter your email address and check whether it is available. This platform is operated by Troy Hunt, who has already made his name in the security sector.