According to Facebook, there are fewer users affected by the hack that they had thought
According to specialists in digital forensics from the International Institute of Cyber Security, a group of hackers got access to personal information of about 30 million Facebook users, such as phone numbers and email addresses, in what represents the biggest security incident in the company’s history. The attackers accessed even more details of about 14 million of those affected users, such as home information, personal relationships and religious affiliations.
This information has been made public just two weeks after Facebook first announced the security incident that compromised the personal information of 50 million of its users, which means that the attackers could have taken advantage this incident to get the personal information of the victims. Facebook published last Friday a statement in which they claimed: “Our digital forensics team says there are fewer victims than we thought at first”, adding that there are 30 million people who have been affected.
Of the affected users, 14 million people were more involved in their personal details, such as Facebook username, gender, location, language, relationship status, religion, hometown, city of residence, birth date, devices used to access Facebook, academic training, work, places visited, people followed and recent Facebook searches.
Facebook mentions that it is in the process of communicating directly with each one of the affected users. The social network also said that it is cooperating with the FBI, the Federal Trade Commission and the Irish Data Protection Commission, as well as other organizations from different parts of the world, mainly Europe.
The company is regulated by the Irish authorities in Europe, since its European headquarters are there. A spokesman for the data-regulating authority of Ireland spoke about this incident: “It is important that Facebook is updated today now that it has been confirmed that the attackers took personal data from millions of people”.
Beyond the security announcement issued by the company, there are still many details about the attack that remain unknown to the general public, including the identity of the attackers.
The attack provoked that Facebook took an unprecedented measure, forcing a massive log out of 50 million of users whose accounts were exposed, in addition to forcing another 40 million of users to log out as a preventive measure, as reported by specialists in digital forensics.
Facebook is still waiting for the possible penalties that this security incident can generate; even a collective lawsuit has already been filed in California, US.
Working as a cyber security solutions architect, Alisa focuses on application and network security. Before joining us she held a cyber security researcher positions within a variety of cyber security start-ups. She also experience in different industry domains like finance, healthcare and consumer products.
