How to check if hackers are sharing your data on Facebook?

Around Easter 2021, news of a data leak of 533 million Facebook users circulated around the world. Polish users of the portal were also affected. There is a good chance that your data may have been hacked or used by third parties. How to check it?

Of the 533 million Facebook user data, as many as 2.7 million are from Poland. The data breach could therefore affect anyone with a profile on the popular social network.

How do you know if hackers have breached your data?

Free website Have I been pwned? (freely translated: was I defeated) allows you to see if your data may have been compromised or hacked. Much of the data included phone numbers, later used by hackers.

The Have I been pwned? website is run by Troy Hunt, a data breach expert. What you need to do. After typing in a user’s phone number, you can see if it is included in the downloaded Facebook data set (there is more information there than a phone). If it is, the site tells victims what is likely to have been compromised and what steps they can take to protect themselves.

Sensitive data vulnerable to leakage

Expert Troy Hunt says hackers quickly linked phone numbers to a person’s Facebook identity. It turned out that most of the records contained first and last names and gender, and many also had date of birth, location, relationship status and employer. Facebook representatives say in a statement that the hack is due to the effect of a 2019 bug, which has already been fixed. It is also reported that the stolen 2019 data, unfortunately, can still be useful to cybercriminals. It is also worth considering scammers who impersonate other people. It is difficult for a Facebook user to permanently delete data such as date of birth or phone number from the service.

Recommended precautions

If after typing your phone number or email into the search engine Have I been pwned?, you are presented with a message about a possible data breach, it is recommended that you take these steps:

Step 1. Secure yourself with the so-called 1Password (the only secure password, i.e. one you cannot remember, that can be generated on the Have I been pwned?) to create and save strong passwords for each site.

Step 2 Enable two-factor authentication and store codes in your 1Password account.

Step 3 Subscribe to notifications of other violations. Then change this unique password.