Skip to main content

Slashdot: Phone Numbers For 533 Million Facebook Users Were Being Sold On Telegram

Phone Numbers For 533 Million Facebook Users Were Being Sold On Telegram
Published on January 31, 2021 at 02:04AM
Slashdot reader DevNull127 writes: This week a security researcher discovered a bot on Telegram that sold the phone numbers of Facebook users for $20 apiece. "The security researcher who found this vulnerability, Alon Gal, says that the person who runs the bot claims to have the information of 533 million users, which came from a Facebook vulnerability that was patched in 2019," reported the Verge. Motherboard reported the bot was also offering "bulk" pricing, selling 10,000 phone numbers for $5,000. Telegram told the New York Post that they'd blocked the bot Tuesday morning, while Facebook downplayed the incident, reminding the Post "This is old data." But the Post notes that Facebook already had more than 1.6 billion daily active users in September 2019, and security researcher Alon Gal posted a count of the millions of affected users in each country, finding 32,315,282 in America, 11,522,328 in the United Kingdom, 7,320,478 in Australia, and 3,494,385 in Canada. But the Verge points out the most ominous message of the breach: that ""the data is still out there on the web" — and that it's already resurfaced, more than once, in the days since it was initially scraped.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Slashdot: Spain-Backed Fund Joins FOSSA's Sovereign Satellite Communications Push

Spain-Backed Fund Joins FOSSA's Sovereign Satellite Communications Push Published on 2026-06-28T22:05:00Z Spanish startup FOSSA Systems "has raised about $10.5 million to expand its connectivity constellation," reports Space News, noting some funding is backed by Spain's government: The support from the Spanish Society for Technological Transformation (SETT) comes a year after the fund injected 14 million euros into Spain's Sateliot , which is also developing a satellite connectivity network with security and defense applications. Spanish private investment firm Kibo Ventures led FOSSA's funding round, the six-year-old venture announced June 24, bringing its total raised to date to nearly 20 million euros. The proceeds will help fuel FOSSA's push beyond the tiny picosatellites it once used to connect low-power monitoring devices toward larger cubesats in low Earth orbit, enabling additional sovereign communications and space-based intelligence capab...
Post a Comment
Read more

Slashdot: AT&T Outlines $250 Billion US Investment Plan To Boost Infrastructure In AI Age

AT&T Outlines $250 Billion US Investment Plan To Boost Infrastructure In AI Age Published on 2026-03-10T20:00:00Z AT&T plans to invest more than $250 billion over the next five years to expand U.S. telecom infrastructure for the AI age. The company says it will also hire thousands of technicians while partnering with AST SpaceMobile to extend coverage to remote areas. Reuters reports: Rapid adoption of artificial intelligence, cloud computing and connected devices has prompted telecom operators to invest heavily in fiber and 5G networks as they also seek to fend off intensifying competition from cable broadband providers. AT&T, which has about 110,000 employees in the U.S., said the new hires will help build and maintain its infrastructure. The outlay includes capital expenditure and other spending, the company said. The spending will focus on expanding its fiber and wireless networks, including accelerating deployment of fiber broadband, 5G home internet and satellite co...
Post a Comment
Read more