Yahoo Finance 540 million Facebook records found on Amazon
Facebook’s data breach scandals are not over.
540 million records of Facebook users’ personal information have been found on an unsecured public Amazon database, according to Bloomberg.
The records – which had been culled by Mexo City-based digital platform Cultura Colectiva and stored on Amazon servers – included users’ personal information like identification numbers, comments, reactions, and account names.
California-based security researcher Chris Vickery, whose job at cybersecurity start-up UpGuard is to find data breaches before cyber criminals do, found the leak at the beginning of February and got in touch with Amazon, who owned the server of the database.
Amazon security staff got back to him three weeks after he brought the breach to their attention.
“We’re looking into the situation and assessing any extra steps we can take,” Amazon security staff told Vickery.
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Only yesterday (3 April) were the records – available for the public to access and download if they knew where to find it – taken down after Facebook got in touch with Amazon.
Facebook was plunged into a major data scandal in early 2018 when it was revealed that 50 million Facebook profiles had been harvested for data and used to influence choices in the US presidential election.
$100 billion was wiped off Facebook’s share price in a matter of days and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg eventually testified in front of the US Congress.
Social media platforms have been facing more scrutiny in Australia in recent weeks, albeit for different reasons.
In the wake of the Christchurch massacre live stream, the Morrison government passed legislation late Thursday afternoon that means executives of social media giants can now face jail time of up to three years for failing to “expeditiously” take down “abhorrent violent material” from their platforms.
The social media platform itself can now face fines of up to 10 per cent of the company’s annual turnover.
“Big social media companies have a responsibility to take every possible action to ensure their technology products are not exploited by murderous terrorists,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in a statement on the matter over the weekend.
“This is about keeping Australians safe by forcing social media companies to step up and do what the community expects of them to stop terrorists and criminals spreading their hate.”
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