Privacy concerns again arise as an automated bot on Telegram is leaking personal details of the Facebook users, as per the report by Motherboard. The hacker is accessing the database of Facebook users’ phone numbers through a low-level cybercriminal forum and conveniently selling the data online.
The data can be purchased for one credit per number, which is equivalent to $20, and the buyer can have a discount if it purchases 10,000 credits in bulk then the amount equals $5000. These issues can create a lot of consequences, with the surging occurrences of privacy leaks nowadays.
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This issue was first discovered by Alon Gal, a security researcher. He states that the person currently running the Telegram bot claims to have the personal information of around 533 million users. He was able to gain access to this data due to a Facebook vulnerability, that was fixed back in 2019.
Alon Gal further stated,” It is very worrying to see a database of that size being sold in cybercrime communities, it harms our privacy severely and will certainly be used for phishing and other fraudulent activities by bad actors.”
In addition to it, Gal also posted on Twitter some of their findings, mentioning that in early 2020 the Facebook vulnerability was discovered and the cybercriminals took advantage of this notion, which allowed them to retrieve data of 533 million Facebook users. This issue is resurfacing now due to the usage of the Telegram bot, which allows users to pay a fee to access these details and this act can be performed on large scale.
It is not certain yet that if Telegram has been notified to remove the bot, but whatsoever the cybersecurity has to increase the protection of the sensitive data if the data is to be kept private.
Image Source: The Verge
