Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has found himself in quite the predicament this week after his phone number and personal data were released by hackers...
Along with millions of Facebook users who have also had their personal data stolen and posted online in a low-level hacking forum.
Things aren't looking good.
Here's the full story...
Now, if it wasn't for New York-born Mark Zuckerberg...
Social media certainly wouldn't be what it is today.
Zuckerberg launched the Facebook social networking site from his Harvard dorm room in 2004.
It was originally launched to select college campuses but it expanded at a rapid pace, with it eventually becoming global.
Facebook gained a staggering one billion users by 2012 and it currently has approximately 2.6 billion active users, making it one of the most popular social media sites in the world.
This made Zuckerberg the world's youngest self-made billionaire when he was just twenty-three-years-old...
And fast-forwarding to today, he has a very comfortable net worth of $112.5 billion, according to Forbes.
It's safe to say that Zuckerberg has done unbelievably well for himself...
And with him being the founder and CEO of the world's largest social media site, you'd think nothing would ever go wrong... right?
Well, Zuckerberg has actually landed himself in quite a lot of trouble over the years...
And the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data breach scandal in 2018 was perhaps his most controversial lawsuit.
The scandal concerned the obtaining of the personal data of millions of Facebook users without their consent by British consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica.
Cambridge Analytica. Palantir. Facebook. Zuckerberg.
— I Am Listening (@Iamlistening666) April 5, 2021
High on tech but low on morals they ignore our privacy to make billions.
Data is the real prize for these corrupt people......we need more people to understand this.
The data was collected through the app, "This Is Your Digital Life," and it harvested the data of up to eighty-seven million Facebook profiles.
Cambridge Analytica then used the data to provide analytical assistance to the 2016 presidential campaigns of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump and it was also accused of interfering with the U.K Brexit referendum.
Facebook was ultimately hit with a $5 billion fine from the Federal Trade Commission as part of a settlement over claims the company had mishandled user data.
You'd think Zuckerberg and his multi-million dollar team would learn from this, right?
Clearly not!
Because over the weekend, a user in a low-level hacking forum published the phone numbers and personal data of hundreds of millions of Facebook users for free.
Zuckerberg's name, location, marriage information, date of birth, and Facebook user ID were among the trove of stolen personal data published on a hacker forum, cyber researcher Dave Walker confirmed.
Regarding the #FacebookLeak, of the 533M people in the leak - the irony is that Mark Zuckerberg is regrettably included in the leak as well.
— Dave Walker (@Daviey) April 3, 2021
If journalists are struggling to get a statement from @facebook, maybe just give him a call, from the tel in the leak? 📞😂@GazTheJourno pic.twitter.com/lrqlwzFMjU
A Facebook spokesman said in a statement to the Daily Mail:
"This is old data that was previously reported on in 2019. We found and fixed this issue in August 2019."
The database appears to be the same set of numbers circulating in hacker circles at least since January, according to Alon Gal, co-founder of Israeli cybercrime intelligence firm Hudson Rock.
That data had been sold and resold among cybercriminals for some time, but Saturday's leak on the hacker forum now makes it available essentially for free.
Personal information from users around the world is being offered for a few euros' worth of digital credit on a well-known site for digital hackers...
But an attempt by Reuters to reach the leaker over the messaging service Telegram was not immediately successful.
Let's hope this security breach doesn't happen again...
Because how many times must it happen for Zuckerberg and his team to tighten their security policies?
Scroll on for more news...
