Facebook in the crosshairs yet again – this time, India’s cybersecurity agency issues an advisory to Indian users

Advertisement
Facebook in the crosshairs yet again – this time, India’s cybersecurity agency issues an advisory to Indian users
Facebook has been in the news recently for a massive data leakUnsplash
  • Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has issued an advisory to Facebook users over a data leak.
  • Personal information of over 450 million users, including 6.1 million India users has been leaked online.
  • The cyber security agency has advised users to review and change their privacy settings.
Advertisement
India’s cybersecurity agency Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has issued an advisory to Facebook users in the country to help them strengthen their account after the recent Facebook data leak.

In a massive leak, data of over 450 million Facebook users, including over 6.1 million Indian users was leaked online. The leaked data includes personal information such as name, email address and phone number of the users.

"It has been reported that globally there has been a large-scale leakage of Facebook profile information. The exposed information includes email addresses, profile ID, full name, job occupation, phone numbers and birth date,” said CERT-In in its advisory.

Complimentary Tech Event
Transform talent with learning that works
Capability development is critical for businesses who want to push the envelope of innovation.Discover how business leaders are strategizing around building talent capabilities and empowering employee transformation.Know More

As per Facebook, this data was scraped prior to September 2019 using the company’s ‘Contact Importer’ feature. While the company has claimed that it changed the feature in September 2019, the personal information of over 450 million users was already scraped.

"According to Facebook, the scraped information does not include financial information, health information or passwords, however information from more than 450 million unique Facebook profiles globally, including approximately 61 lakh Indian individuals, has been made publicly available,” added CERT-In.
Advertisement


Here are the recommendations from the country’s cyber agency.

Recommendations to protect your personal information

  1. Visit here and change your privacy settings to “Private” or “Friends”.
  2. Go to your privacy settings and change who can find and contact you to “Friends”.
Apart from this, it also advises users to periodically review their privacy settings as introduction of new features may result in your data being shared without your knowledge.

SEE ALSO:

How to check if your phone number was leaked in Facebook data breach of 533 million users

Mark Zuckerberg's phone number appeared among the leaked data of Facebook users, according to a researcher

Apple will roll out the privacy-oriented iOS 14.5 update next week that has Facebook worried