More than 10,000 spectators were present as four AI-powered cars vied at Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League (A2RL)
Facebook said on Tuesday that hackers “scraped” personal data of some half-billion users back in 2019 by taking advantage of a feature designed to help people easily find friends using contact lists.
Don't miss
Has your Facebook data been leaked? Check here
A trove of information about more than 530 million Facebook users was shared over the weekend at a hacker forum, prompting the leading social network to explain what happened and call on people to be vigilant about privacy settings.
“It is important to understand that malicious actors obtained this data not through hacking our systems but by scraping it from our platform prior to September 2019,” Facebook product management director Mike Clark said in a post.
“This is another example of the ongoing, adversarial relationship technology companies have with fraudsters who intentionally break platform policies to scrape internet services.”
The data included phone numbers, birth dates, and email addresses, and some of the data appeared to be current, according to US media reports.
The stolen data did not include passwords or financial data, according to Facebook.
Scraping is a tactic that involves using automated software to gather up information shared publicly online.
“All 533,000,000 Facebook records were just leaked for free,” Alon Gal, chief technology officer at the Hudson Rock cybercrime intelligence firm, said Saturday on Twitter.
He denounced what he called the “absolute negligence” of Facebook.
“Bad actors will certainly use the information for social engineering, scamming, hacking and marketing,” Gal said on Twitter.
Clark urged members of the social network to check their privacy settings to control what information can be seen publicly, and to tighten account security with two-factor authentication.
This is not the first time leaks or use of data from the world’s largest social network — with nearly two billion users — has embroiled Facebook in controversy.
In 2016, a scandal around Cambridge Analytica, a British consulting firm that used the personal data of millions of Facebook users to target political ads, cast a shadow over the social network and its handling of private information.
More than 10,000 spectators were present as four AI-powered cars vied at Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League (A2RL)
More than half of the Philippines' provinces are in drought as El Nino exacerbates hot and dry conditions typical for March, April and May
Court opened investigation into Sanchez's wife in response to a complaint by anti-corruption pressure group, whose leader is linked to the far right
Chang'e-6 to return with soil samples from moon's far side; the mission expected to last 53 days
The breed, prized for profitability and an ability to adapt to climate change, garners celebrity status in the Central Asian country
Thousands of schools have suspended classes due to the heat, affecting more than 3.6 million students, education ministry data shows
Despite the growing market share of domestic automakers, Teslas remain among the best-selling EVs in the Asian country
The entire plan will see cow-breeding and poultry projects come up near the massive wheat farm and the dairy farm will form the third phase