In what could be a frightening news for Facebook users across the globe, hackers appear to have compromised and published private messages from at least 81,000 users’ accounts.
A report by BBC said that hackers told them they had details from a total of 1.2 crore accounts. The hackers also said that they intended sell them for a price. Facebook has denied that its platform’s security was compromised adding that data had probably been obtained through malicious browser extensions.
The social media giant said that it had taken steps to prevent the further hacking of personal accounts of users. The affected users of the latest hacking are believed to be based in Ukraine and Russia. But, some are also understood to be from the UK, US, Brazil and elsewhere.
They have reportedly offered to give access to the hacked personal messages for as little as 10 cents (Rs 0.72) per account. The data breach first came to light in September this year, when the hackers posted an online advert to sell personal messages of hacked accounts. The ad was posted from user nicknamed FBSaler on an English-language internet forum. The ad, which has now been taken down, had read, “We sell personal information of Facebook users. Our database includes 120 million accounts.
“We have contacted browser-makers to ensure that known malicious extensions are no longer available to download in their stores,” Facebook executive Guy Rosen was quoted as saying. He added, “We have also contacted law enforcement and have worked with local authorities to remove the website that displayed information from Facebook accounts.”
This comes just days after Facebook confirmed that personal data of 29 million users across the globe had been compromised. Among those whose data were stolen were many in India too. Facebook had written to affected users to inform them about the breach in their private information. The information stolen by hackers included users’ mobile numbers, email addresses, places they visited recently and last 15 searches performed on Facebook.
In its message to affected users, Facebook had written, “We have more information abut the security incident we discovered on September 25, 2018. Some of your information was accessed by an unauthorized third party. This includes your name, email address, phone number, and other information such as your date of birth and recent locations you’ve checked in to or been tagged in.