The personal information for over 500 million Facebook users has been found on low-level hacking website.
The posted data, first reported by Business Insider, included phone numbers, full names, locations, birthdates and email addresses, of 533 million users.
The information comprises of people from over 100 counties including 32 million records of users in the U.S., 11 million users in the U.K. and 6 million users in India.
Insider reported that it verified the data by matching Facebook users’ numbers from their page with the data set.
The data is reportedly several years old, according to the news outlet.
A spokesperson from the social media platform said that the information had been scraped after a vulnerability was patched in the site in 2019.
The Hill has reached out to Facebook for comment.
The latest revelation regarding data is the latest example of the challenges the social media company faces with regard to user data and privacy.
In 2018 the platform got rid of a feature that allowed users to search for “friends” using their personal phone numbers after finding that Cambridge Analytica was able to access that information.
Nearly 87 million Facebook users at the time had their personal information compromised, according to a report from The Associated Press.
A Ukrainian security researcher found a similar database of phone numbers and unique user IDs of more than 267 million Facebook users in 2019. Most of those users were based in the U.S., AP reported.
It is currently unclear if that database is related to the most recent findings.
“This is old data that was previously reported on in 2019,” Facebook told AP. “We found and fixed this issue in August 2019.”
