Data of 500 million Facebook users up for sale via Telegram bot: reports

A report by Motherboard said that the problem was first highlighted a security researcher, Alon Gal, who said that a user of cybercriminal forum is selling access to the database of phone numbers of nearly 500 million Facebook users.

Facebook told Motherboard when it contacted the data relates to a vulnerability the company fixed in August 2019.

This is not the first incident as back in 2019 mobile phone numbers of around 419 million Facebook users were detected on an unprotected server.

The security researcher has reported that users from over 100 countries are affected.

According to Motherboard, if someone has a person’s phone number, then they can find their Facebook user-ID with the help of Telegram bot. But in order to access the information, they will be required to pay. The person who created the Telegram bot is selling a phone number or Facebook ID for $20, which is around Rs 1,460 in India. The bot is also selling Facebook users’ data in bulk. For 10,000 credits, the bot is charging $5,000 (around Rs 3,65,160), adds the report.