"267 Million Facebook Users Exposed in Accessible Database"

Comparitech and security researcher, Bob Diachenko, discovered an unsecured Elasticsearch database online, which exposed sensitive information belonging to more than 267 million Facebook users, most of which reside in the US. The personal data exposed by the easily accessible database includes user IDs, phone numbers, and names. The internet service provider (ISP) managing the IP address of the server in which the database was stored, removed access to the data. However, researchers found that the data was already available to cybercriminals on a hacker forum as the database was exposed for two weeks prior to its removal. Evidence suggests that the data was collected as a part of an illegal scraping operation or through the abuse of the Facebook application programming interface (API). This article continues to discuss the discovery of an unprotected database that exposed information on over 267 million Facebook users, the type of information contained by the database, how cybercriminals may have stolen the data, and how this data can be used.

Security Week reports "267 Million Facebook Users Exposed in Accessible Database"